Keeping time in Alaska: National directives, local response
photo credit: Getty images
“Until fairly recently, people throughout the world gave little or no thought to measuring the time of day. Farmers, ranchers, hunters, gatherers, and other subsistence users rose with the sun and carried on their daily activities until dusk. When the sun set, some people responded by lighting a fire or a candle, while others went straight to bed. By the mid-eighteenth century, when the first European visited Alaska’s shores, clockmakers were making timepieces that could trace the hours and minutes with remarkable accuracy. Most people, however, cared little about the exactness of time; in 1790, for example, fewer than 10 percent of Americans had a clock of any kind, and most of those clocks had no minute hand.”
Created for the conscious, curious, creative woman making sense of space, place & pace - one pattern at a time.
© StarCozi, 2026. All observations, analysis, and visual annotations are original work unless otherwise credited.
