Smyrna Times

HOTELS PLACE BAN ON EYESTRAIN
WITH HELP OF SCIENCE

Guests Are Greeted With
"Certified Lighting"

By ADELE VANCE

NEW YORK CITY - Have you had your lighting certified today? If not, the chances are that you're not stopping at one of the most modern hotels. To the already familiar "features" such as "guest kits" for the out-of-towner who has forgotten his tooth brush; running ice water; morning papers under the door, etc., has been added a most welcome improvement-"Certified Lighting."

The Statler Hotels, with hostelries in New York, Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, St. Louis and Detroit, are the first to inaugurate the policy of "certified lighting"-a guarantee that the light furnished in each room is adequate for normal reading or critical work of long duration.

The managers of these hotels, long experienced in anticipating the desires of their guests and in acting on any suggestions made by them as to ways of improving Statler service, discovered that business men did a great deal of reading, writing and figuring in their hotel rooms.

They immediately set about finding some method of checking lighting conditions in their rooms to determine whether their patrons were getting the proper amount of light. Managers these days, needless to say, are eager to avoid any sort of nerve strain on the part of their guests. Eyestrain, they reason, is a cause of irritation-irritation is the cause of unpleasant complaints, dissatisfied guests, harried employees, distracted managers and lowered returns. Hence remove any cause of irritation to guests.

Science solved the problem as it has solved many others.

A meter, known as a "sight meter" came to the rescue.

The sight meter, a new adaptation of the same kind of photronic photo-electric cell which opens hotel kitchen doors and does many other uncanny things, was developed to serve the very purpose the Statler hotels had in mind-viz., to determine and accurately register light intensity.

On the calibrated dial, a needle instantly indicates the degree of light at any given point. The dial is sectioned into brackets designating "light adequate for reading normal print, fine print, sewing; severe visual work for long periods; and light inadequate for critical seeing."

With the aid of this simple, compact device a new bona fide "feature" has been added to the attractions offered by Statler hotels.

Lamps have been placed in correct positions for reading and writing and are equipped with bulbs of correct intensity to insure the guest against eyestrain.

More reading and writing is done in the hotel room than people realize as this guest of the Hotel Statler discovered. Insert, the "Sight Meter," science's newest contribution to the relief of eyestrain, which makes "Certified Lighting" possible.