Fav odd job of the 1900's: A lector - aka a person who would read the newspaper outloud at factories and places where work was otherwise repetitive and mindless.
GameSnippetsUK well now I’m super curious who still does this ... and why they opted for a lector over, say, a radio and or allowing workers to wear headphones. Any ideas?
@@KyleWyattOnGoogle The last few paragraphs of our story on Cuba's lectores gets into this a bit (as does a BBC story linked to within): mentalfloss.com/article/71485/lectores-who-read-cubas-cigar-rollers It seems like the practice in those cigar factories was ingrained deeply enough (and, perhaps, relationships with individual lectores were meaningful enough) to help the tradition persist, sometimes alongside the more modern methods you mention. A decade ago, the BBC suggested there were about 250 lectores in Cuba. I wonder how many are left standing (or, more accurately, sitting) today.
The only reason I knew the witnesses protection program was a thing is because it’s the main plot point of Our Lips are Sealed, the Mary-Kate and Ashley movie.
My great-grandfather immigrated in 1905 to Lynn on the north shore of Massachusetts. Census data first lists his occupation as a mule shaver, apparently in the shoe-leather field. I’d love to learn about that industry.
The Dead Letter Office is a really fascinating antiquated job. It was the duty of the employees at the DLO to open mail that had incorrect addresses and try to find the rightful recipient. There are stories of engagement rings ending up in the DLO.
My grandfather was an ice delivery man. Deadly with an ice pick. The story is that one day he was sitting on his front steps and a gopher popped its head up, and my grandpa threw it and got it right between the eyes with the ice pick!
My favorite outdated job, other than the knocker-up, is ice cutting. It's hard to imagine a time when you literally had an ice box to keep your food cold. The whole process seems overly complicated, but that's all they had to work with.
10-20% is a much lower rate of recidivism than prison produces. Maybe instead of sending convicts to prison, we should just give them a clean slate somewhere unconnected to their former life and crimes. Not so much for their sake, but for ours...
Not from a long time ago: Secretary & typists. 50's, 60's and 70's saw pretty much anyone near the top of the org chart having a secretary and hosts of women in a typing pool.
True. I imagine there are still some secretaries, but I do wonder-outside of companies that specialize in transcription or the like, are there any typists left? We tried to go a bit odder for our old jobs list. You can see it here, if you care to: ua-cam.com/video/Sw0sgmwHZd8/v-deo.html
I’ve always wondered how a medieval tax collector’s done his work, and approximated people’s tax who paid in kind (like animals or wheat!). Also Healers are always so interesting.. before you get charged as a witch that is!
Here is an obscure job from ancient times: A gleaner. This person would follow after the harvesters and pick up the bits of grain that fell. There were laws pertaining to the rights of the gleaners, they weren't beggars, it was considered an honest job. The most famous gleaner was Ruth from the Bible.
I was a candy striper! I was working (volunteering) at St. Mary's Hospital in Passaic, NJ, on the day of the moon landing. Watched it with patients and visitors in the solarium
@@meansquaretech In fairness, that's the number of people placed in protection throughout the history of the program, not necessarily in one year. (It'd be interesting to know how many are still alive/in the program).
Were chimney sweeps still a thing in the 1900's? that would be my favorite old-timey job despite the health risks, if only because of growing up with Marry Poppins. My family also has a chimeny sweeper knuckcracker that has its own special spot on a mantle during Christmas
When I was a kid, we had a milkman. I think he even delivered while I was in high school, which I started in 1969. Billy boys made tea for other men who were working on construction jobs. And phone switchboard operators, a la Lily Tomlin, existed in my youth. We also had a Fuller Brush man.
The White House has switchboard operators still. Apparently they are EXCEPTIONALLY good at their job and can locate ANYONE within ten minutes of getting the request.
u put my innocent caitlin on a bus with hardened criminals... yes, shes got her riot gear and vest on. she wanted to be in conair 2 also....no not the blow dryer conair.... she doesnt even have a seatbelt violation yet
Go to Renaissance Faires, Pennsic, Fife and Drum musters, tribal land, etc and tell me it's antiquated. It's coming back into popularity thanks to my generation's obsession with crafts.
Sin eatter from the early medieval period. Their job was to sit with a body before it was hurried and eat salted bread and malted mead that absorbed the sins of the deseased. The sin eatter would be nomadic due to being seen as tainted by all the sin they carried.
Inspector of Nuisances - pretty much "sanitary inspector", working at the garbage dumps and waste places...haha I just think that name is hilarious. (Reference: Old Occupations: Inspector of Nuisances. Family Tree Magazine Vol 11 #4, page 9-10) Crossing Sweeping - someone who would sweep the roads so ladies and gentlemen could cross the street without getting their shoes and clothes dirty :) (Reference: Mayhew’s London, [a condensation of volumes I-III of London Labour and the London Poor]. Bracken Books, London. FHL book 942.1/L1 E6m, 1861) Rat catcher - pretty much what it sounds like... vermin control for the town. But apparently "there was also a good market for live rats for the blood sport against dogs or ferrets, and the delicacy of rat pie graced many a poor table" - see www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/England_Occupations,_Commercial_Services,_General_Labourers_(National_Institute)#Vermin_Control Whitesmith - didn't know there was an opposite to blacksmith, didya? Whitesmiths worked mostly in white metal, rivalling pewter. More of a tin alloy that was made up of tin, antimony, and copper in a specific ratio. Introduced in 1769, so idk if it goes all the way into the 1900s... Hull (Pewter. Shire Publications, 1999)
Computer, copiest, stenographer, (weaver, carder, spinner), town crier, cary a lamp in front of your car, barker, sandwich man, laundress (yes female), shoe shiner,
When did they go back to this format?!!! I'm back in!
Fav odd job of the 1900's: A lector - aka a person who would read the newspaper outloud at factories and places where work was otherwise repetitive and mindless.
Still done in places! Quite rarely though
GameSnippetsUK well now I’m super curious who still does this ... and why they opted for a lector over, say, a radio and or allowing workers to wear headphones. Any ideas?
@@KyleWyattOnGoogle The last few paragraphs of our story on Cuba's lectores gets into this a bit (as does a BBC story linked to within): mentalfloss.com/article/71485/lectores-who-read-cubas-cigar-rollers It seems like the practice in those cigar factories was ingrained deeply enough (and, perhaps, relationships with individual lectores were meaningful enough) to help the tradition persist, sometimes alongside the more modern methods you mention. A decade ago, the BBC suggested there were about 250 lectores in Cuba. I wonder how many are left standing (or, more accurately, sitting) today.
The only reason I knew the witnesses protection program was a thing is because it’s the main plot point of Our Lips are Sealed, the Mary-Kate and Ashley movie.
Yes! I've wanted to be in it ever since then 😆
My great-grandfather immigrated in 1905 to Lynn on the north shore of Massachusetts. Census data first lists his occupation as a mule shaver, apparently in the shoe-leather field. I’d love to learn about that industry.
I think a purplemaker would be an inresting old job. Crushing and fermenting seashells for a living.....
The Dead Letter Office is a really fascinating antiquated job. It was the duty of the employees at the DLO to open mail that had incorrect addresses and try to find the rightful recipient. There are stories of engagement rings ending up in the DLO.
A Knocker-up is essentially a human alarm clock. They would go around and knock on doors and windows to wake people up.
Amazing because that was my name in high school ;)
What a bout a knocker-up's knocker-up the person who woke up the knocker-up.
My great-grandfather was one of those.
I was gonna say this!
Wet nurse
blockbuster employee
It's more recent, but if you look at movie credits from the 60s, you might see someone credited as a Continuity Girl.
Obviously love the idea of a knocker upper.
Also, pinsetters before bowling alleys were mechanized.
"Hello, Mr. Thompson."
My grandfather was an ice delivery man. Deadly with an ice pick. The story is that one day he was sitting on his front steps and a gopher popped its head up, and my grandpa threw it and got it right between the eyes with the ice pick!
My great grandfather was a milk man and great grandma was a switchboard operator at the same dairy.... love in the workplace
I never understood how their testimony would be admissible after the witness had been bribed with freedom and a new life.
Street lamp lighter, and alarm person (someone who taps on your window to wake you up in the morning)
Before now everything I knew about WitSec came form My Blue Heaven.
How Doctors used to "treat" women with "hysteria". Though, that might make the video age-restricted!
Night soil man. Person who cleaned away chamber pots and outhouses.
My favorite outdated job, other than the knocker-up, is ice cutting. It's hard to imagine a time when you literally had an ice box to keep your food cold. The whole process seems overly complicated, but that's all they had to work with.
Weird old dog job was turnspit dogs, they were bred to turn meat on a spit for cooking. They’re extinct now
Knocker-upper. Someone who went around and knocked on your door/window in the morning to wake you up to go to work.
Selzerman. Drove around large cities delivering selzer before soda really became as big as we know it.
10-20% is a much lower rate of recidivism than prison produces. Maybe instead of sending convicts to prison, we should just give them a clean slate somewhere unconnected to their former life and crimes. Not so much for their sake, but for ours...
Good idea!
Apothecary Druggist that is also a barber... i love the lost meaning of the barber’s pole.
Not from a long time ago: Secretary & typists. 50's, 60's and 70's saw pretty much anyone near the top of the org chart having a secretary and hosts of women in a typing pool.
True. I imagine there are still some secretaries, but I do wonder-outside of companies that specialize in transcription or the like, are there any typists left?
We tried to go a bit odder for our old jobs list. You can see it here, if you care to: ua-cam.com/video/Sw0sgmwHZd8/v-deo.html
I’ve always wondered how a medieval tax collector’s done his work, and approximated people’s tax who paid in kind (like animals or wheat!). Also Healers are always so interesting.. before you get charged as a witch that is!
She reminds me of Ricky Bobby. “I don’t know what to do with my hands.” Lol
My grandma was once an.Elevator Operator... I would like to know more about that profession.
Erin "Tearin'" McCarthy
Here is an obscure job from ancient times: A gleaner. This person would follow after the harvesters and pick up the bits of grain that fell. There were laws pertaining to the rights of the gleaners, they weren't beggars, it was considered an honest job. The most famous gleaner was Ruth from the Bible.
About the antiquated jobs thing: do one about nightsoil removers or newsies or candy stripers.
Oh Town Criers too. That's a good one.
I was a candy striper! I was working (volunteering) at St. Mary's Hospital in Passaic, NJ, on the day of the moon landing. Watched it with patients and visitors in the solarium
@@JuliaB1955 my Mother and her 2 sisters were candy stripers in the 60s and one of them became a nurse later.
@@squintsyadams8463 Nice! I'm thinking they're maybe around my age, 63?
@@JuliaB1955 My mom would've been 65 this year.
"What to do with my hands while I talk... What to do with my hands... What to do with my hands..."
Whistlepunks. Seriously, they were a real thing. Worked in logging camps.
Looks like 6ix9ine will be the first person to beat the 100% success streak that the WITSEC has going for
10 million a year seems actually good for a government program!
Especially for one managing 19,000 people...
@@meansquaretech really? 19000. That's amazing. It shows what government can actually do if they would just streamline. Hi from Ireland.
@@meansquaretech In fairness, that's the number of people placed in protection throughout the history of the program, not necessarily in one year. (It'd be interesting to know how many are still alive/in the program).
Were chimney sweeps still a thing in the 1900's? that would be my favorite old-timey job despite the health risks, if only because of growing up with Marry Poppins. My family also has a chimeny sweeper knuckcracker that has its own special spot on a mantle during Christmas
When I was a kid, we had a milkman. I think he even delivered while I was in high school, which I started in 1969. Billy boys made tea for other men who were working on construction jobs. And phone switchboard operators, a la Lily Tomlin, existed in my youth. We also had a Fuller Brush man.
wqad.com/2017/07/17/fuller-brush-salesman-still-knocking-despite-dying-profession/
Best old time job: knocker upper
I'm not certain if it was a real job, but the job held by Bartleby the Schrivner, basically a human Xerox machine, is certainly an antiquated job.
a computer someone who does repetitive path operation (like in hidden figures)
I love the job title of knocker up as a person who knocked to wake people up
Lift Operators. Just a pully and some human strength.
What did you do with John Green Erin?? He never hurt a soul and YOU KILLED HIM and burned down his salon.
Today I learned about the witness upgrade program. Breastimplants and facelifts: You GO Girl!!!
I’d like to nominate snake oil salesperson as a weird old job.
I've always loved the job of barber/surgeon/dentist.
"Send me to the Badlands. So I can be bad."
"So I can be just like Teddy Roosevelt"
A phone/switchboard operator. (Dial 0)
My hospital still has a switchboard operator and I don't know of anywhere else where that is their only job.
The White House has switchboard operators still. Apparently they are EXCEPTIONALLY good at their job and can locate ANYONE within ten minutes of getting the request.
How about a professional mourner, also known as a moirologist.
These still exist
Yeah I knew that when I wrote it but I want to get on the list and it’s a cool name.
Wet Nursing was popular until the last hundred years. I honestly think I'd choose that career. 😍😍
People used to collect human poo and wee for various reasons often called the night soil man
How about pudler as a weird jib?
u put my innocent caitlin on a bus with hardened criminals... yes, shes got her riot gear and vest on. she wanted to be in conair 2 also....no not the blow dryer conair.... she doesnt even have a seatbelt violation yet
Okay who else said cat lady before she did that was fucking spooky
This isn’t what I expected
shes strapped dont worry just lay low and stay out of the line of windows view
Antiquated job like basket weaving? It's still offered as a major in osu and that's the only thing I can think of
Go to Renaissance Faires, Pennsic, Fife and Drum musters, tribal land, etc and tell me it's antiquated. It's coming back into popularity thanks to my generation's obsession with crafts.
I think I would have enjoyed being a lector - someone who read to factory workers to keep the mind-numbing boredom at bay.
I had a relative that was a wallpaper salesman.
A hatter is always an interesting job given the chemicals involved.
Sin eatter from the early medieval period. Their job was to sit with a body before it was hurried and eat salted bread and malted mead that absorbed the sins of the deseased. The sin eatter would be nomadic due to being seen as tainted by all the sin they carried.
Shoe shiner. You can still find some shine stands around the country but I'd like to know more.
WitSec should bring back plastic surgery. With facial recognition systems improving and CCTV/recording everywhere, it would be easy to find ppl
Remember: your name is Homer Thompson
Telephone operator with a cord board.
Wheel Wright manufacture of wagon wheels
Lawn mowers... who'd walk on stilts & cut the grass of large estates with a scythe
Elevator operators
i think you mean “32 facts about the witness protection program “
The people who had to clean all the horse poop off the streets
You could have added Sammy the bull. He reopened business.
Ice cutter and cooper
cuz from boston, thanks for going ovr and wlkn moores dogs, shes so drunk she couldnt walk straight. no prob. cuz
Her cats ate John Green.......
Anyone else secretly hope to be put in the witness protection program?
Hurdy-Gurdy Man
1 song x ♾
Newsies!
Chimney sweep
Coopers.
Flint knappers?
WITNESS PROTECTION FOR WHAT!?
Lamp lighter or boot black
be careful
Runemasters!
Can we have John back please
fun!
lamp lighter
Knocker up.
Rat catcher
My mob name would be Mandie the brainiac maniac
Inspector of Nuisances - pretty much "sanitary inspector", working at the garbage dumps and waste places...haha I just think that name is hilarious. (Reference: Old Occupations: Inspector of Nuisances. Family Tree Magazine Vol 11 #4, page 9-10)
Crossing Sweeping - someone who would sweep the roads so ladies and gentlemen could cross the street without getting their shoes and clothes dirty :)
(Reference: Mayhew’s London, [a condensation of volumes I-III of London Labour and the London Poor]. Bracken Books, London. FHL book 942.1/L1 E6m, 1861)
Rat catcher - pretty much what it sounds like... vermin control for the town. But apparently "there was also a good market for live rats for the blood sport against dogs or ferrets, and the delicacy of rat pie graced many a poor table" - see www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/England_Occupations,_Commercial_Services,_General_Labourers_(National_Institute)#Vermin_Control
Whitesmith - didn't know there was an opposite to blacksmith, didya? Whitesmiths worked mostly in white metal, rivalling pewter. More of a tin alloy that was made up of tin, antimony, and copper in a specific ratio. Introduced in 1769, so idk if it goes all the way into the 1900s... Hull (Pewter. Shire Publications, 1999)
Computer, copiest, stenographer, (weaver, carder, spinner), town crier, cary a lamp in front of your car, barker, sandwich man, laundress (yes female), shoe shiner,
Stenographer is still a pretty common job.
I don’t mean to be rude but 30% of this information is not accurate
Ice Cutter.
Jamboy
Knockeruppers
night soil men
Count two more votes for wet nurse
Whole lotta snitches watching this huh
So when is Epstein actually going to testify?
Typesetter
scullery maid