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Full Listing of Going, Going, Gone Jobs Jobs of Yesteryear  A B C D E F G H I J K L M - Z Listing |
(Source:
Australian Air Power Today)
The Term
Navigator is NO Longer used in Australia. An Aircraft Navigator's
primary duties involve ensuring safe and accurate navigation by planning
routes, monitoring position, and using navigational aids to guide the
aircraft, while also providing flight information and assisting with air
traffic control procedures.
Navigators operate the electronic systems on board, and because of rapid
development in the electronics field, must be increasingly competent in
their computer operations.
This job is now included in a Pilot's job and is dependent on
satellites.
(Source:
How
Stuff Works)
In ancient eras, an alchemist would try to convert chemicals into gold. People considered them "wizards," as they usually tried to make special elixirs to treat diseases or grant immortality.
(Source:
Good Housekeeping)
You would think farmers would sell their own produce during the Market
Revolution, but nope! Badgers were the middlemen who would buy produce
from farmers and then up-sell it to customers at the farmers' market.
Our friends over at Business Insider think the phrase, "To badger
someone" came from a badger's persistent sales tactics. Middlemen
exist today, but the term "badgers" does not.
(Source:
I Funny Co)
In ancient Greece, bematists learned to measure their steps to calculate
distances. They would often publish their calculations in books, which
listed distances between well-known points as well as reports of
empirical customs and natural findings.
(Source:
Good Housekeeping)
A billy boy was a young man tasked with making tea for men working at
railway yards, blacksmiths and building sites. During break times, a
billy boy, who was considered an apprentice, would light a fire and boil
water in lightweight cooking pots called "billycans" to make tea.
Bowling Pin Setter
(Bowling Alley Pinsette)
(Source:
Ethical Jobs)
Generally a job reserved for teenagers, the lowly paid bowling pinsetter
job was the norm before automated pinsetters were introduced in the
1950s.
The job was sent to the gutter once the mechanical pinsetter was invented by Gottfried Schmidt in 1936.
(Source:
Drivepedia)
(Source:
LoveInc)
To separate impurities from coal, coal breakers in the U.S. relied on
breaker boys who were between 8 to 12 years old. Because this job was
labor-intensive, many people argued against allowing children to work in
these conditions. However, it continued into the early 1920s until the
coal separation technology improved and child labor laws became more
strictly enforced.
(Source:
LoveInc)
This ill-fated occupation of yesteryear is often cited by economists as a classic example of how technological progress can kill an entire sector. The buggy whip industry was thriving in the 1890s with thousands of companies producing the essential riding accessory, but had all but vanished by the early 20th century as the automobile replaced the horse and carriage.
(Source:
LoveInc)
Caddy butchers specialized in processing and selling horse
meat, which was popular in both the United Kingdom and the United States
until the 1940s. Horse meat was cheap at that time and was considered an
alternative to venison or beef.
Jim Frecklington with the
Royal Carriage that he built for Queen Elizabeth and was used in the
coronation of King Charles III.
(Source:
SBS)
Read all about Jim and his carriage
here.
(Source:
Wikipedia)
Cavalrymen were soldiers who mostly rode on horseback, but could
also ride elephants or camels. The last major conflicts that relied on
cavalrymen were World War I and World War II.
(Source:
Business Insider)
This job has been around for hundreds of years, peaking during the
Industrial Revolution and then falling into a steep decline after the
adoption of electric and gas alternatives. Fun fact: Door-to-door
chimney sweeps were called knellers. You can still find chimney sweeps
today, just not as prevalent as before.
(Source:
LoveInc)
Glamorous tray-carrying cigarette girls were a common sight in
restaurants, movie theatres, bars, nightclubs and airports across
America from the 1920s to 1950s. They were put out of business when the
cigarette machine went mainstream, and had become a relative rarity by
the 1960s.
(Source:
Good Housekeeping)
In the middle ages, people hired clock keepers to track time and
maintain clocks and other timekeeping devices. Clock keepers often
received significant amounts of money to ensure the accuracy of a clock,
as the job involved some basic skills in mathematics in a time when
education was not yet widespread.
A clockwinder did exactly what the name insinuates — wind clocks. It was
only a matter of time before electric clockwinders, which required less
maintenance and fewer repairs, were produced during the Industrial
Revolution.
Crossing sweeper
(Source:
National Archives UK)
In the 19th century, when streets were often littered, dirty and filled
with waste, people would hire a crossing sweeper to sweep a path ahead
of them as they walked down the street. Wealthy people would pay
crossing sweepers to prevent contact with waste or to protect their long
skirts or articles of clothing.
(Source:
Pinterest)
A daguerreotypist was responsible for capturing photos using a
daguerreotype, the first form of the camera available to the public. The
daguerreotype was very popular in the mid-19th century and captured
images of many politicians and celebrities of the time.
To make the image, a daguerreotypist polished a sheet of silver-plated
copper to a mirror finish; treated it with fumes that made its surface
light sensitive; exposed it in a camera for as long as was judged to be
necessary, which could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit
subjects or much longer with less intense lighting; made the resulting
latent image on it visible by fuming it with mercury vapor; removed its
sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment; rinsed and dried it;
and then sealed the easily marred result behind glass in a protective
enclosure.
The Conversation 17 February 2022
(Source:
Drivepedia)
From the late 19th century all the way to the mid-1900s, dictaphone
operators paved the way for dictation machines and voice recorders would
eventually follow suit, leading us to present-day technology.
(Source:
Drivepedia)
A dispatch rider was a motorcyclist from the first and second world wars
responsible for delivering urgent messages between militaries. Radio
transmissions during wartime were unstable and prone to interception at
the time, so reliable and quick motorcycle couriers were needed during
these pressing situations.
(Source:
LoveInc)
Child labour was sadly a fact of life in many Western countries up to and during the early 20th century. Doffers, for instance, were nimble-fingered young boys who worked in textile factories removing and replacing bobbins from the spinning frames, and were a common sight in American mills until 1933, when child labour was finally outlawed.
(Source:
Pinterest)
In the United Kingdom in the 1700s, drysalters were dealers who provided
chemical products, such as dry chemicals and dyes, used in salted,
tinned and dried food or edible oils. Some drysalters also traded
potash, logwood, flax and hemp.
(Source:
Drivepedia)
Egglers began to sell bulk batches of eggs and
sometimes switched it up with other poultry. At the end of the day, they
couldn't wing it with just eggs and poultry and added other food to the
mix. Today, you can find these folks at farmers' markets.
(Source:
Drivepedia)
An elevator operator was responsible for manually closing and opening
elevator doors, controlling the speed of the car and telling patrons
what companies were on each floor. However, this job became obsolete
because people now prefer to press their own elevator buttons.
The occupation declined from the 1930s when automatic elevators began to replace the manual models, and only survives today as a luxury novelty in a small number of high-end department stores and apartment buildings.
Human computers at NASA and other organizations
were responsible for making calculations to determine, for instance, the
number of rockets needed to make a plane airborne. They performed these
calculations on graph paper, and they could take up to a week.
Human computers worked for organisations crunching numbers, right up
until the 1960s. The profession was notably inclusive at a time when
science jobs were dominated by white males. Hidden Figures, a
2016 book by Margot Lee Shetterly, tells the story of three
African-American women – Katherine Johnson (pictured), Dorothy Vaughan
and Mary Jackson – who were employed as human computers for NASA, and
was the basis of the Oscar-winning movie of the same name.
(Source:
Arstechnica)
Showing actress, Taraji Henson, playing Katherine Johnson who got John Glenn into space due to her mathematical insights.
(Source:
Ethical Jobs)
Before the invention of the mechanical fridge, men would head out to
frozen lakes and cut blocks of ice with a hand saw for use in ice
houses. Nowadays, the trade is reserved for the artistic pursuit of ice
sculpting only!
When reliable freezing and refrigeration didn't exist, ice cutters collected surface ice from rivers and lakes to sell. To cut through the ice, they often used hand saws or horse-drawn devices. (Source: Indeed)
(Source:
LoveInc)
Ice-cutters harvested the ice, but the blocks were delivered to homes
and businesses by icemen, and to a lesser extent icewomen, as you can
see from this photo, which was taken in New York during World War I. The
trade fell into decline not long after and had all but died out by the
1950s, but ice delivery still happens in Amish communities, which shun
electricity.
Knocker-Upper
Human Alarm Clock
(Source:
Ethical Jobs)
Some form of the alarm clock has been around since 400(ish) BC but the
human alarm clock – also known as a Knocker-Upper – pictured here – was
common in Britain and Ireland during the 1920s. It was particularly
important during the industrial revolution to get factory employees to
work on time!
People in the 1800s would hire "knocker uppers" to shoot peas at the
glass of their window or tap on the glass using a long pole to wake them
up. (Source:
Indeed)
Lamplighter
(Source:
Ethical Jobs)
Ah electricity – where would we be without you? Still lighting
streetlights by hand!
The only lamplighters today exist purely for tourist purposes, but
before the 19th century night owl lamplighters were responsible for
lighting the streets.
Before electric street lights, a lamplighter would go around town
extinguishing and lighting gas-burning street lamps. When cities
replaced gas lamps with electric light bulbs, lamplighters became
jobless. (Source:
Indeed)
In the late 19th century, the towns and cities of Europe and North America were teeming with gas-powered lamps, and it was the lamplighters' job to fire them up each evening. Gas was replaced by electricity in the early 20th century, but several cities have retained a limited number of gas lamps, including London, which boasts 1,500 lamps and five part-time lamplighters.
(Source:
Ethical Jobs)
Lectors were employed in factories by unions – or with money pooled by
workers – and often read left leaning or union publications to workers.
Apparently, this is still in practise in Cuba, but it was generally put
to an end in the United States in 1931 after the Tampa cigar-makers
strike.
In the early 1900s, factories employed a lector to read books or newspapers aloud to keep employees entertained. The lector would often stand or sit on an elevated surface while reading the news so that the entire factory could hear. (Source: Indeed)
(Source: Indeed)
(Source:
London Photo Walks)
A leech collector was responsible for retrieving the blood-sucking worms
from their natural habitat for doctors to use. Individuals with this job
would use the legs of animals or their own legs to lure leeches from
creeks and rivers.
(Source:
LoveInc)
In this century, making and spreading news has never been easier. However, this was certainly not the case around the 1960s. People then used to rely on “Linotype Operators” who used to press down articles on newspapers piece by piece with the help of a metal typesetter.
(Source:
University of Tennesse)
Linotype machines were used by newspapers and magazines for typesetting
from the late 19th century until the 1980s, when computer technology
made them defunct. The operators worked long hours in exceptionally
noisy composing rooms. The volume in the rooms was so high, the New York
Times is said to have favoured hearing-impaired candidates for
linotypist positions.
Log Driver
(Source:
Ethical Jobs)
Before trucks, logs were transported to the sawmill using the currents
of the river and a team of men also known as “river pigs”. The men
guided the logs down river and ensured there were no jams along the way.
Before the infrastructure or technology were available to transport logs by timber lorry or logging truck, log drivers would use the current of a river to transport them from a forest to pup mills and sawmills downstream. (Source: Indeed)
Material sourced from
Business Insider
Drivepedia
Ethical Jobs
Good Housekeeping
Indeed
LoveInc
Mental Floss
Stacker
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