“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”*…
The world is divided into people who sit on the floor and those who sit on chairs. In a classic study of human posture around the world, the anthropologist Gordon W. Hewes identified no fewer than a hundred common sitting positions. “At least a fourth of mankind habitually takes the load off its feet by crouching in a deep squat, both at rest and at work,” he observed. Deep squatting is favored by people in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but sitting cross-legged on the floor is almost as common. Many South Asians cook, dine, work, and relax in that position. Certain Native American tribes in the Southwest, as well as Melanesians, customarily sit on the floor with legs stretched straight out or crossed at the ankles. Sitting with the legs folded to one side… is described by Hewes as a predominantly female posture in many tribal societies…
Witold Rybczynski‘s brief history of the chair: “Sitting Up.”
* Albert Einstein
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As we settle in, we might recall that it was on this date 1859 that George Pullman’s first railroad sleeping car, a rebuilt day coach, was introduced. His first purpose-built sleeper followed in 1865.
Pullman’s first sleeper