“Will AI make my job redundant?” we hear you cry as yet another seemingly human task becomes a doddle for what is essentially a machine. Well, spare a thought for these professions. Generative AI had little to do with their demise.
Circus Elephant Groom
Now obsolete due to shifting ethics and laws banning exotic animal performances. See Jumbo [RR3:44].
Film Winder
People hired in Hollywood to wind and inspect reels of celluloid by hand. A critical job before splicing machines.
Fuller
A medieval cloth worker who cleaned and thickened wool using a mix of urine and stomping feet. Yes — actual urine.
Gong Farmer
An Elizabethan-era job involving the nightly removal of human waste from cesspits. Smelled as bad as it sounds.
Ice Cutter
Harvested massive blocks of ice from frozen lakes in winter for use in iceboxes through the year. Dangerous and freezing work.
Knocker-Upper
In pre-alarm clock Britain, a person would literally knock on your window with a stick (or pea shooter!) to wake you for work. See Knocker-Uppers [RR2:40].
Lamplighter
Armed with a ladder and a flame, lamplighters would patrol the streets at dusk, igniting gas lamps one by one.
Lector (in Cigar Factories)
Hired to read newspapers and novels aloud to factory workers as they hand-rolled cigars. A form of workplace entertainment and education.
Leech Collector
In 18th–19th century medicine, people waded into swamps to gather leeches for doctors. Often women or children, they’d attract the leeches with their own blood.
Lift Attendant
Before push-button elevators, lifts were manually controlled by uniformed attendants who knew how to operate the gears and levers.
Linotype Operator
Ran enormous mechanical typesetting machines for newspapers and books, casting molten lead lines of text. Disappeared with the rise of desktop publishing.
Phrenologist
Before it was dismissed as racist pseudoscience, lots of people went to phrenologists, who could "read" your intelligence by the shape of your head. See Phrenology [RR4:56].
Pinsetter (Bowling Alley Boy)
Before automated machines, boys manually reset bowling pins and rolled back the balls. A dangerous gig with low pay and lots of bruises.
Rat Catcher
A common Victorian job involving crawling into basements and sewers to eliminate rat infestations. Some used ferrets or trained dogs.
Resurrectionist
Body snatchers who exhumed corpses to sell to medical schools. A grim but lucrative 18th-century trade.
Sponge Diver
Harvested sea sponges by free-diving deep underwater, usually barefoot and with primitive equipment. Still done in places, but rare.
Switchboard Operator
A once-ubiquitous job (especially for women), manually connecting calls by plugging wires into massive boards.
Town Crier
Before newspapers, a town’s news was bellowed in public by a man with a bell and a loud voice: “Hear ye, hear ye!”
Turnspit Dog
Dogs bred specifically to run on a wheel that rotated meat over a fire. A living rotisserie motor.
Whipping Boy
In royal households, this child was punished when the prince misbehaved, because royalty was too sacred to strike.
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References
wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Obsolete_occupations
Images
1. Cuban cigar factory lector circa 1900 and a WWI lamplighter in Britain
2. Linotype operator
3. Phrenology. See Phrenology [RR4:56].
4. Pinsetters (Bowling Alley Boys)
5. Rat catchers
6. Switchboard operators
7. A turnspit dog hard at it inside a wheel, 1800
8. Whipping boy
