31 Jobs That Were Lost to History

‘Door-to-door Encyclopedia salesperson’
31 Jobs That Were Lost to History

I’m told, as a writer, that I should be terrified of A.I. taking my job. Given how easy it is to clock what is obviously A.I. writing, and its absurd, bordering on libelous grasp of the truth? I’m not exactly shaking in my boots. Though it could take one earnings report to change that.

Throughout history, though, there are many jobs that have been made completely obsolete. Many of them, because of automation. Some of them, because it turns out the job was basically “get cancer in a basement,” and even without a union, that doesn’t fly. 

Redditors have collected some of the many long-gone jobs that, unfortunately, are hiring nevermore.

 4y ago Organ pumpers. Until the organ blower came along, organs had to be pumped by hand. Clergy would send sextons and altar boys up to the loft to hand-pump the organ for services.
TheOneWes 4y ago Switchboard operators. For a period of time this whole nation was completely dependent on them for any type of decent communication.
PartGalaxy 4y ago For a while before modern refridgeration, Ice delivery was pretty big profession that employed a lot of people. Ice harvesting was dangerous too. A small army of people would essentially walk on a frozen lake in the early morning and literally chop out blocks of ice, almost minecraft-style, and load them onto trucks to be delivered to homes and businesses. Granted, there's still ice delivery and such, but modern refridgeration did away with the whole risk life on a frozen lake aspect of it, not to mention the ability to just, you know, make ice in the
Eugeniavictoria a 4y ago Door closers. The Paris Opera House had these people whose only function was to make sure doors were always closed, avoiding air currents that could damage the singers voice. In reality, they just wanted to give people who had worked there for long and were already too old to do anything else a job so they could earn a bit of a living.
sir_percy_percy . 4 y ago I used to work in a video store.
 4y ago Rome was a social place, full of well-to-do people. So many people, in fact, that you couldn't possibly remember all of their names. Thankfully, you could avoid an embarrassing incident by bringing a Nomenclator. With your trusty Nomenclator by your side, anyone who comes within 5 feet of you or makes eye contact will have their name loudly announced so you can't possibly forget!
tamtamdanseren . 4y ago Computer used to be a job title and not a machine.
solivia916 . 4y ago Knocker-uppers. Their job was to go around and wake people up before alarm clocks were invented.
_-Loki 4y ago I write historical fiction so I've come cross quite a few of these. Some that havent been mentioned yet. Lectors. Pre radio some workplaces had a lector who would read out newspaper articles, books, or just tell stories to entertain manual workers.
Aircraft listener. Pre radar they made sort of gigantic ear trumpets (like hard of hearing people used to help them hear before hearing aids) and actual people sat and listened for sounds of approaching aircraft so they could sound an early warning.
ITherearenogoodnames9 - . 4y ago Lamplighters. They just went around town lighting and extinguishing the street lamps.
ChikaDeeJay. . 4y ago Matchstick girls. Little girls were employed (because of their small hands) to dip the end of a stick into sulfur to make matches. It was a super dangerous job because sulfur can literally dissolve skin.
seminarysmooth . 4y ago Elevator Operator/Liftman.
sirkowski . 4y ago Apparently fluffers are a thing of the past because of viagra.
MrLionOtterBearClown 4y ago Surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but scribes. Before the printing press, if you wanted a book, you had to have it made by a scribe. So some dude would have to spend hundreds of hours meticulously copying a book in minute detail in order for you to have a copy. So back then being able to read was basically the status symbol equivalent of owning a yacht/ private jet today. Or just being a priest.
TravelingGen . 4y ago Cartwright-skilled in the building and repair of wagons, carriages, and carts.
MissSara101 . 4y ago Edited 4y ago My parents, who are boomers, explained that one of them had thought of getting a job as a soda jerk. It was like a bartender but with non- alcoholic carbonated drinks. Sometimes called dry bars. Milkshakes and frappe were also served. (Here in New England, milkshakes don't contain ice cream).
KirCo32 4y ago Garden Hermit During Victorian times it was fashionable to have a hermit living in your garden. They were meant to dress in robes and ... hang out. Sometimes they would tell stories or history to visitors, but part of being a hermit if not hanging out around people, so, for the most part, they just existed.
Illustrious-Fault224 . 4y ago The milkman, now my mother cheats on my dad with guys she finds on tinder and Craigslist. Modern technology taking jobs once again
Jaubert13 . 4y ago Bematist: a dude who was measuring long distances by counting how much steps his camel was doing on the way
 . 4y ago Pin boys. Before automated bowling pin resetting there were people who would run and reset the pin after every turn.
lostbumbershoot t 4 y ago Door-to-door Encyclopedia salesperson.
AngelMori .44 ago Town cryer
quilp666 . 4y ago Tanneries used to employ people to collect urine from households for use in preparing leather. They were paid for it and a sign of real poverty was a family that didn't have a pot to piss in.
3002kr . 4y ago Three used to be people who would copy patent drawings exactly. This was before copy machines/printers existed.
SubstantialAction918 4y ago Typesetters were outdated nearly fifty years ago
 4y ago Key punch operators. In the old days of main frame computers, new data was entered (somehow) by punching holes in little cards that would be fed into a slot in a computer. The job was becoming extinct around the time | was finishing high school, so I don't understand how punching holes in cards conveyed information to computers, but I do remember seeing classified ads in the newspaper advertising positions for key punch operators.
p38-lightning 4y ago My great-grandfather ran one of the last livery stables in our area. Не provided all kinds of services related to horses and wagons. Не would board horses, rent mules, rent wagons, haul freight and passengers, etc. Не had a big wagon with seats that could flip down, allowing it to be multi-purpose. When cars and trucks took over in the 1920s, he switched to farming.
quilterlibrarian . 4y ago My mother in law used to hand draw blueprints for buildings.
SkinlsForTheWeak . 4y ago Radium Girls. Women who worked in factories painting watch dials and clocks with radioactive paints in the 1920-40s. They were encouraged to use their mouths to wet their brushes, and many of them developed oral cancers as a result.
viktor72 . 4y ago Traffic directing cops. They stood in booths and acted as traffic lights way back in the early 20th century.

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