May 17, 2026

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

There is much that is standard – common – about a floor lamp, once the go-to light source as you sat down in the comfy armchair next to the radio console and listened to Jack Benny or read the daily newspapers. It was, pun aside, a standard fixture in American homes.

It may seem so simple – searching in a dark area for a pull chain, but the fact that light then became instant, that you did not have to use a kerosene lamp or a candle to sit in that enveloping, comfortable chair after a day’s work was a reminding metaphor that you also did not have to chop wood and build a fire to warm yourself and kin.

The British call floor lamps “standard,” probably because most homes after electricity had upright lighting fixtures in the first room with a pull chain so you could turn on the juice. Early electrified houses in England, the U.S. and elsewhere, had no entry wall switches, just perhaps a single wall receptacle and a pull-cord ceiling fixture. So the “standard” was the substitute switch, the entry floor lamp.

Even today, when perhaps a wall switch connects the table lamp, you might find yourself later pulling the chain on the upright lamp as you settle down, maybe to look at the smart phone. That might be the new standard.

Many of us – thankfully – recall the standard lamp in our grandmother’s house, its bulb and shade casting a warm glow that never leaves our memory – it’s always on. Standard.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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