58 Interesting Yet Weird Jobs That No Longer Exist

The word "computer" originally meant "one who computes." Before electronic computers became commercially available, human computers—often women—were responsible for mathematical calculations.

Before electronic alarm clocks, the folk was woken up by knocker-uppers. In the 1800s, citizens employed knocker-uppers to tap on their windows with a long pole or shoot peas at their windows to wake them up so they could get to work on time.

Before pasteurized milk and home refrigerators, milkmen delivered milk straight to customers' doors every day to avoid spoilage.

Governments employed aircraft listeners before World War II to listen for the sound of an enemy aircraft's engine using acoustic mirrors. Although acoustic reflectors effectively picked up sound, the enemy aircraft often got too close to take preventative measures by the time the listeners delivered a warning.

In ancient Egyptian and Mediterranean cultures, moirologists, or professional mourners, were women employed by families to express their sorrow over the loss of someone and grieve them. They would also watch over the body before burial and advise mourners as they went through the grief process.

An elevator operator was in charge of manually closing and opening the doors, managing the pace of the elevator, and informing passengers of the businesses located on each floor. In most contemporary buildings, visitors can now operate the elevator themselves with a press of a button.

A person who swept dirt ahead of the path people were crossing was known as a crossing sweeper. Wealthy people were often the ones to pay them. They paid crossing sweepers to protect their long skirts or other garments from getting dirty.

Switchboards, manual telephone devices that could handle numerous calls on different lines, were employed by switchboard operators. They answered incoming calls and directed callers to whom they needed. Switchboards were subsequently replaced by digital telephones, making switchboard operators no longer needed.

Knives, scissors, and other tools were sharpened using an abrasive wheel by a scissor grinder. It was often a service performed door to door.

A young person, usually male, known as a "billy boy," was responsible for preparing tea for those who worked in blacksmith shops, construction sites, and railroad yards.

A town crier provided the townsfolk in medieval England with the most recent announcements, news, and information since many people were illiterate or could not read. Following the town crier's vocal delivery, a note was posted on a nearby pub or inn door. This job has now been replaced by the media.

Daguerreotypists took photos on the very first type of camera made available to the public, the daguerreotype. In the middle of the 19th century, the daguerreotype was extremely popular and often used for capturing politicians and celebrities of the day.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, an herb strewer would scatter fresh herbs inside and outside a castle or palace to absorb odors. The job was no longer needed when perfumes were introduced, along with more advanced plumbing and sewage systems.

Starting from the 1920s, cigarette girls were essentially salespeople in bars and clubs. They often wore a pillbox hat and carried a tray around their neck filled with several kinds of cigarettes that patrons could purchase. Their trays could also have chewing gum, sweets, and cigars.

Up to the turn of the 20th century, gong farmers were employed to remove all the feces from a home's privy and take it to a dump where it might be used for construction materials or fertilizer. Risking exposure to diseases, gong farmers sometimes lived far from the rest of a hamlet or town and could only work at night.

The Linotype machine, a hot-metal typesetting device used in the 19th century to print newspapers and magazines, was operated by Linotype operators. They arranged the letters, spaces, and numbers to create text molds. The occupation became obsolete in the 20th century when digital printing gained popularity.

Maintenance of soda fountains and pouring soda into glasses from a spigot behind a counter fell to soda jerks. Soda fountains, together with soda jerks, lost favor as the dining and food industries evolved.

Before the infrastructure or technology was available to transport logs by timber lorry or logging truck, log drivers (also called river pigs or river hogs) would use the current of a river to transport them from a forest to pup mills and sawmills downstream.

Before the rise of modern computers, many companies utilized paper punch cards to record and store data. These punch cards were beneficial in accounting duties like managing budgets and keeping payroll records. When punch cards were still in use, there was a huge demand for punch card (or keypunch) operators, usually women, all performing data input.

Bematists lived in ancient Greece and Egypt and measured their steps to determine distances between well-known points. They often published their calculations in books. As mapping and measurement technologies progressed, the job became obsolete.

In the 19th century, physiognomists used to evaluate a person's character or personality based on their outward appearance. They thought bodily characteristics were enough to recognize personality traits like sincerity and openness.

Telegram messengers went to people's homes or places of employment to deliver printed messages sent through telegraph. They could have brought the reply with them when they returned to the telegraph office so that the answer could be telegraphed back to the original sender.

A telegraphist, also known as a telegraph operator, was in charge of transmitting and receiving Morse code using telegraph equipment to communicate over landlines and radio.

Pinsetters used to remove and replace pins between each round before bowling alleys had automated pin setup and retrieval machines. They waited at the end of the lanes and manually reset the pins.

In medieval times, clock keepers tracked time and maintained clocks and other timekeeping equipment. Since ensuring the accuracy of a clock required some basic mathematical skills before those were common, clock keepers often got large payments for their services.

Operating a movie projector in a theater fell to a film projectionist. With the introduction of digital projection, the use of film to display movies in theaters has become increasingly rare, making this job no longer in demand.

During the Victorian era, toshers entered the sewage system of London in quest of valuables like coins, bone fragments, or metal scraps. After it was made illegal to enter sewers in 1840, sewer-hunting declined, and the job was rendered obsolete.

A typewriter mechanic was a specialist who identified problems with and fixed mechanical typewriters, which were once used to print written texts by pressing a series of keys. Typewriters and related occupations became obsolete as more people shifted to computers and digital printers.