We recently bought a house from the 80's and at that time incandescent bulbs were the thing with pull strings. I replace those pull string lights with Plugs and also add switches at the stairs to turn on the lights so no more darkness and having to pull each light on every time you want to go to the basement.
For the Leviton 5059 Plug used, here it is: https://amzn.to/2Vzj5jv