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21 Historical Professions That Were Incredibly Popular In The Past But Have Died Out By Now
Perhaps one of the greatest fears of modern people is that artificial intelligence will come and take our jobs. Even representatives of creative professions, who have long boasted that no computer is capable of real creativity, watch how AI wins numerous art contests and worry more and more every day.
In fact, the development of humanity is one continuous graveyard of professions that were once very popular and in demand, and today, few actually remember that such professions once existed. And only various online threads like this one make us remember these professions that have sunk into oblivion.
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#1
A Knocker Upper
Knocker-uppers were responsible for waking people up by making loud noises.
Jennifer Drake 10 months ago
Last knocker upper I knew is absolutely DROWNING in child support debt.
Upstaged75 10 months ago
Maybe they worked in shifts and woke up the next shift when they finished?
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#2
Time Lady
If you needed to know the exact time, you could call a special number and a female voice would tell you the information. It was a lady with an accurate clock in front of her and she would tell you the time to the second when she called.
Annik Perrot 10 months ago
Up to à couple decades ago, we had the "Horloge Parlante" (speaking clock) that we could call, but for as long as I remember (I was born in the 50s), it was automated.
Nadine Debard 10 months ago
"Au quatrième top, il sera 10 heures et trente-deux minutes... Bip...bip...bip...bip"
Load More Replies... Brian Droste 10 months ago
I remember this but I am pretty sure it was automated by the time I was an adult.
Carl Roberts 10 months ago
This wiki page includes a list of well known "time ladies" from the U.S. and U.K. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_lady
Sven Horlemann 10 months ago
Oh, I remember as a child in the 70s and 80s to call the time number to get the correct time.
#3
Town Crier
Town crier informed the townspeople of the latest proclamations, news and information.
Apatheist Account2 10 months ago
The UK ones had a bell, and they still exist for ceremonies. This doesn't look like one.
Jeroen de Wijn 10 months ago
I am assuming this is written from an American perspective, as there are still quite a lot of official town criers in Euripe. The one in my village uses an antique drum.
Vito 10 months ago
Why American? Why not Canadian, Australian, Mexican, Japanese?
Load More Replies... Lene 10 months ago
In villages in Denmark we had an appointed oldermand. He was chosen for a year at a time and his job was to tell the village of news, remind them of when taxes were due, and collecting food for the poor in the weeks up to holidays etc. He called for village meetings (for men only) with a horn and he had a stick where he'd mark if the men from each farm in village was late for meetings.
Imagine waking early in the morning, a century and a half or two ago, awakened by stones thrown by the knocker-upper at our window. We go to buy milk from the milkman and put the can in the cold pantry, previously filled with ice bought from ice cutters. We go outside, listen to the local news from the town crier, and go to the telegraph office to send a telegram to relatives in another city.
We pass by the river, where mudlarks scurry about in the coastal mud, looking for dropped coins or just scrap metal to sell. If we suddenly feel dizzy, the local doctor would gladly let our blood - they just bought a couple dozen first-class leeches from leech collectors. And it's a day off - we go bowling, where specially trained pinsetters always set up the pins.
#4
Pinsetter
Before the automatic pinsetter was invented, bowling alleys had people picking up pins and setting them up so that play could continue.
Fat Harry (Oi / You) 10 months ago
We still have a "sticker-up" for the English pub game of skittles, which is a bit like 9 pin bowling.
Mike F 10 months ago
It was quite dangerous work. The father of one of my old friends was a pin setter and used to tell stories about broken bones and other serious injuries from flying pins. RIP, Morrie!
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murmelinpaiva 10 months ago
A fellow high-school student set duck pins in the local bowling alley.
Scott Rackley 10 months ago
The actual "setting" part is automated but there still has to be guys in the back to rectify hiccups in the machine. Stuck pins and such.
#5
Ice Cutters
In a world without refrigerators, their functions were performed by closets and cellars filled with ice. The ice was chopped and cut on rivers and lakes - and then transported to storage sites to be sold.
Rinso The Red 10 months ago
There's a lot of melting that happens before it gets to you. That big block? A single, raw, ice cube
Load More Replies... Ode 10 months ago
And people just generally ate fewer things that had to be kept cool. Things were cured, fermented or made into a jam so food was preserved with different methods. The need to cool food is partly something that was created after fridges became a thing, as we just started to come up with more types of food that need cooling, or even freezing.
#6
Leech Collectors
Leech collectors (usually women) wandered through the ponds with their dresses hiked up, collecting leeches on their bare legs. They then collected the attached leeches and sold them to local doctors, who used them for bloodletting.
We play with friends until the evening, from time to time buying cigarettes from cigarette girls. But it's late - we check the time with the time lady. We go home - it's getting dark outside, and the lamplighters have already gone to work, lighting one gas lamp after another. We pay the knocker-upper in advance for an early wake-up tomorrow morning and go to bed. Tomorrow we have a lot of important things to do...
Of course, this is a slightly exaggerated story, but you just can't imagine how many different jobs there were in the old days! And recently, the user @the_marcoli_boy asked people on X what similar professions they knew. As of today, there are almost a hundred different jobs in the thread, and the list is only growing. And we, Bored Panda, offer you the most interesting and unusual of these jobs.
#7
A Clock Winder
Clock winders manually wound up mechanical clocks in homes, offices and public spaces.
PunchinelloTX 10 months ago
Not pictured: a clock winder. Also not pictured: a clock being wound. “Not the actual photo!”
#8
Rat Catcher
Rats have long been known to carry various diseases, so rat catchers were considered very useful workers. They were often accompanied by specially trained dogs - for example, many breeds of modern terriers.
BN80 10 months ago
In some areas of the UK, you can pay to have a pack of fully trained Norfolk Terriers visit your farm or home and catch all the rats, they are amazing at it.
Catlady6000 10 months ago (edited)
In New York there are clubs where people will meet at a chosen alleyway and set their terriers loose. In the Nashville area there is a club that meets and forms obstacle courses with a fake rat at the end. The dogs love it, they really enjoy the stimulation
Load More Replies... Pernille 10 months ago
Lots of rat catchers in Europe. I regularly see a portrait of one one the news. In Marseille the rat catchers uses ferrets, and I saw a guy in Danmark that uses a very happy terrier.
Huddo's sister 10 months ago
My uncle used to keep ferrets to catch rabbits on their farm
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Auntriarch 10 months ago
We had rats in our garden years ago, the chap that came to deal with them had the biggest upper incisors I've ever seen in a human...
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ThatHuskyStorm 10 months ago
Makes me think of Joesph Carter the mink man on youtube! He uses dogs and mink to hunt rats. It’s amazing seeing his dogs work especially alongside the mink. Knowing to stay out of the way of the mink.
#9
A Lamplighter
Lamplighter’s job was to go around town extinguishing and lighting gas-burning street lamps.
Lowrider 56 10 months ago
This was my grandfather's first job. I think he was a young boy when he did it.
Kiki Likes Sweets 10 months ago
TIL a lamplighter's job was lighting lamps. You don't say. 🙄🙄🙄
"In fact, just a little over a hundred years ago, there were a huge number of things that today are made by various technical devices. And we simply cannot imagine our life without these devices," says Valery Bolgan, a historian and editor-in-chief of the Intent news agency from Ukraine, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment here. "And before, all this work was always done by people."
"From collecting leeches to cleaning shoes, from sending telegrams to lighting street lamps - progress always destroys some professions, but in return creates new ones. And, accordingly, the people who were engaged in these new professions produced significantly more with the help of new machines and devices."
"That is why I am not so afraid that AI will sooner or later throw us all into the dustbin of history. After all, we have been through this more than once over the centuries, it’s just that now we are entering a new round. And, perhaps, someday a web designer or programmer will also appear on similar lists of obsolete jobs," Valery ponders.
#10
Mudlarks
Mudlarks scavenged in river mud for valuable items like coins or scrap metal to sell.
Dar Mal 10 months ago
did it but I wasn't licensed....just ran down during low tide and found some goodies!
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Brian Droste 10 months ago
Not so much in mud but there are people that use fishing poles with heavy duty magnets to find metal objects in lakes and streams nowadays. More of a hobby than to make a living.
#11
Linotype Operator
The Linotype Operator was a vital printing industry role, operating machines that cast lines of metal type for newspapers and books.
Mike F 10 months ago
They were fascinating to watch! The setters pecking on the keyboard then pulling the lever and the fun began. Then, they would automatically sort the matrices back into their proper compartment when the slug was cast. Amazing.
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Robert Trebor 10 months ago
Amazing to have visited a printer and smelled the hot lead, and heard the ka-chuck of the linotype. And then go next door where an old Ukrainian man was hand-setting a Ukrainian weekly. New York City 1965
#12
Milkman
The milkman was delivering milk along the streets, loudly calling on people around to buy milk and various dairy products.
Apatheist Account2 10 months ago
These do still exist in the UK, but it's more a regular round (by appointment).
Rednose 9 months ago
Salt Lake City had milkmen on routes by subscription in the mid '60s. A couple of times a week they would come to your doorstep, check your order form, retrieve the items from the truck, and leave them in a insulated box. They would also retrieve any empty milk/cream bottles. The dairy would then periodically send an invoice to be paid.
Mook The Mediocre 10 months ago
I remember from about 1966, as a callow youth in Melbourne, Australia, being woken by the sound of the milkman's horse clopping by the house on his early morning rounds. It was a lovely way to be woken.
Beth Wheeler 10 months ago
A milk truck delivered to my cousin's house until the late 70's or early 80's.
In fact, not all of the professions presented here are actually so obsolete. For example, phrenologists still exist nowadays - adherents of this concept are quite sure that the shape of the skull or the specifics of appearance can be used to learn everything about a person's character and personality.
But the alchemists de facto turned into just usual chemists - after all, turning chemical reactions into money has always been damn profitable.
#13
Human Computer
Human computers made calculations for numerous scientific, research and technology organizations.
Apatheist Account2 10 months ago
TIL I learned about Tommy Flowers, who possibly had a bigger influence on modern computers than Alan Turing, but is forgotten.
BN80 10 months ago
Tommy Flowers was a genius, I saw him in a documentary and he was so humble about his achievements. After the war, he just went back to the GPO, with Colossus buried literally and figuratively. What he achieved was nothing less than astounding.
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TribbleThinking 10 months ago
The weird thing about the scene where she walks into a large room of men, and the only other woman is the secretary, was still happening to me in the 21st century! (I headed up a couple of groups of computer programmers)
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Dragons Exist 10 months ago
Most of the people in this particular picture are
Load More Replies... Limey 10 months ago
They were called “Computers” and the great majority of them were women.
Load More Replies... #14
Cigarette Girl
In restaurants or night clubs, just a couple of decades ago, you could meet girls selling cigarettes of various brands from a tray, one by one.
Apatheist Account2 10 months ago
A couple of decades ago is 2005. I suspect they disappeared longer ago than that, since indoor smoking bans came in in the 20th century.
Ace 10 months ago
In most places such bans cam later than that. 2005 sounds about right, on average. There were till some US states where you could smoke in bars up until the late 2000s, as I personally recall. Crossing the street in Heavenly, Lake Tahoe, from California into Nevada, then going into a Casino to sit at the bar with a beer and a ciggie...
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#15
Telegraphist
The telegraphist received and transmitted messages, playing a vital role in 19th century communication systems.
nm (he/him) 10 months ago
Also during most of 20th century. There were radio-telegraphists on the ships until 80s.
We are almost certain that you also have something to say about the professions without which it was once simply impossible to imagine the human way of life, and today they have become a thing of the past, never to return. So please feel free to scroll and read this selection to the very end, and probably add your own ideas and findings in the comments below the post.
#16
Resurrectionists
The resurrectionists were paid to open graves, exhume corpses, and then take them to anatomy schools for dissection. This is how doctors were trained in the old days.
Apatheist Account2 10 months ago
Contrary to common belief, the infamous Burke and Hare were not grave robbers, they murdered lodgers in Hare's house and sold the bodies to Dr Knox.
UKGrandad 10 months ago
They began as grave robbers for a brief period but because demand outstripped the supply from fresh burials they quickly moved on to creating their own product.
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#17
Railway Signal Man
Signalmen controlled railway traffic by operating levers in signal boxes to guide trains safely and prevent collisions.
Apatheist Account2 10 months ago
Hover over it and you'll see "a Victorian woman operating a mangle". It is, clearly, a woman operating signals.
Hippopotamuses 10 months ago (edited)
Clearly not taken in a signal box. I wonder how long ago this picture was manipulated?
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L M 10 months ago
But isn't this job still exisiting today? There still are people controlling train traffic, maybe using buttons instead of levers - but still... I mean...
Lazy Panda 2 10 months ago
My railway is a branch line and it still has an operating signal box with levers. And signals that go up and down! Enough traffic to stay open, but not enough to get round to modernising.
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#18
Water Carrier
The water carrier carried drinking water from wells and reservoirs to houses, thereby partially performing the functions of a modern water supply system.
JinxBox 10 months ago
Saying this doesn't happen anymore is just saying that you only see what happens in developed western countries...
Bored Sailor 10 months ago
Exactly, recently went to meet my in laws and there is running water but you can not consume it. Always got to get drinking and cooking water. And not all indoor restrooms have flushing toilets.
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#19
Phrenologist
Phrenologists claimed they could determine a person’s character or mental abilities.
Ace 10 months ago
“Retrophrenology: It works like this. Phrenology, as everyone knows, is a way of reading someone's character, aptitude and abilities by examining the bumps and hollows on their head. Therefore - according to the kind of logical thinking that characterises the Ankh-Morpork mind - it should be possible to mould someone's character by giving them carefully graded bumps in all the right places. You can go into a shop and order an artistic temperament with a tendency to introspection and a side order of hysteria. What you actually get is hit on the head with a selection of different size mallets, but it creates employment and keeps the money in circulation, and that's the main thing.” ― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms
Robert Trebor 10 months ago
Oh, I bet there are still "head-bump-feelers" around. Every other wacky thing persists, so why not this?
#20
An Alchemist
Alchemists tried to convert chemicals into gold.
Apatheist Account2 10 months ago
And other stuff - they were the earliest scientists and medics.
LizzieBoredom 10 months ago (edited)
Issac Newton believed in Alchemy. I think it was after he got hit in the head with that apple.
Rachel Reynolds 10 months ago
Alchemy was considered a legitimate science. Chemistry was looked down on as hobby and not a real science. Part of reason was that any old person could do chemistry, but alchemy required self sacrifice to attain "purity of soul" before it would work. Source: Magic in the Middle Ages at Universitat de Barcelona (a course I took on a whim on Coursera)
#21
Hobbler
Hobblers towed ships into docks or harbors using ropes.
Oerff On Tour 10 months ago
No, men towing from the shore. With long ropes
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What do you think ?
iseefractals 10 months ago
How does a list like this omit elevator operator? The elevator operators went on multiple strikes demanding higher wages, which they got because they were a legal requirement at the time. But....they pushed their luck too far, choosing to go on strike in protest of the "automatic elevator"....which served only to hasten the adoption of the automated lift.
Charlotte A. 10 months ago
"Incredibly popular" implies loads of people wanted to have these jobs. Like people want to be influencers, movie stars or whatever else they think will bring them loads of money fast, today. These jobs existed (but was "mudlark" really a job rather than something people with no employment did to survive?), yes, but I doubt they were "popular". Some might have been common, but others... alchemists and phrenologists for example, I doubt there were huge numbers of those around... That said, the topic of forgotten or no longer needed professions, is interesting.
iseefractals 10 months ago
How does a list like this omit elevator operator? The elevator operators went on multiple strikes demanding higher wages, which they got because they were a legal requirement at the time. But....they pushed their luck too far, choosing to go on strike in protest of the "automatic elevator"....which served only to hasten the adoption of the automated lift.
Charlotte A. 10 months ago
"Incredibly popular" implies loads of people wanted to have these jobs. Like people want to be influencers, movie stars or whatever else they think will bring them loads of money fast, today. These jobs existed (but was "mudlark" really a job rather than something people with no employment did to survive?), yes, but I doubt they were "popular". Some might have been common, but others... alchemists and phrenologists for example, I doubt there were huge numbers of those around... That said, the topic of forgotten or no longer needed professions, is interesting.
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