20 Historical Professions That Were Incredibly Popular In The Past

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.

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.

"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.

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 [darn] profitable.

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.