If you’re the kind of person with several sofas and a few chair beds strewn around your home, you might be surprised to learn that at one time chairs were a really big deal. So big a deal in fact, that our society and even our language has been unalterably changed. Chairs were for royalty. Comfort wasn’t even a primary focus for chairs until recently. Chairs had to be big, expensive, intimidating and awe inspiring. Being terribly uncomfortable to sit in was apparently a small price to pay.
Looking at the English language, the word “chair” is repeatedly associated with positions of authority. Nobody is looking to the Hot Dog man to make important decisions. That’s the job of the Chair man. And what does a Chairman do? In a word, chairs. “I’m chairing a committee this afternoon.” See that? I turned a piece of furniture into a verb. Or maybe he could be a chair to bed man as an updated version. Ha! Chairs have been symbols of authority for so long that we even use them in day to day language without even thinking about it.
In ancient Egypt chairs were made from carved wood, then gilded and inlaid with gold. Ebony was also occasionally used, with ivory as a decorative feature. In China chairs became very popular over a course of centuries, but most common folk only owned stools while the rich and nobility owned larger, proper chairs. In other Asian cultures the chair was reserved for royalty only and it was extremely rare for a commoner’s household to own one, even into the nineteenth and in some cases twentieth centuries. Only during the Renaissance did chairs become common household items in Europe. Prior to that they were almost exclusively owned by aristocrats and nobility. Not sure when chair beds were invented, but apparently it was not considered historic in nature.
Only in the twentieth century did the chair not only become common, but begin to take on all the forms we’re familiar with. Metal folding chairs, plastic chairs, bean bag chairs (not sure if those count as chairs, technically) spinning office chairs, and of course molded plastic chairs that no one will ever sit in because they are less comfortable than thrones and far uglier. Finally, we got to the important stuff: ergonomic designs. Today we want futon sleeper chairs that are comfortable. Why it took us more than two millennia to figure that out, I have no idea but at least we finally created the technology to make sleeper chair beds comfortable to sleep in.
