
Category:Obsolete occupations - ve55
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Obsolete_occupations#mw-pages
======
k_sze
Here is a fun one: film interpreter (解畫員 in Chinese/Cantonese)

Many many years ago, foreign films (primarily from Hollywood and in English?)
were becoming popular in Hong Kong, but the general populace was either too
illiterate or didn't speak or read English. Dubbing in Cantonese was
inexistent back then (I guess the studios didn't distribute the films to the
Hong Kong movie theatre chains or distributors with dialogue and sound effects
on separate sound tracks, like they can today thanks to object-based
encodings); subtitling was also useless or inexistent (maybe due to lack of
technology, and also due to poor literacy levels). So the movie theatres hired
film interpreters. The film interpreter would literally stand next to the
silver screen during the screening, and verbally explain, in Cantonese, what
the actors were saying or relevant English text displayed on screen.

Obviously that wasn't very scalable.

As technology progressed and as the population's literacy and education
improved, it became feasible to put subtitles or dub the films in Cantonese.
So the job of the film interpreter became obsolete.

Nowadays, the verb (解畫, to interprete a film) has been hijacked to mean
something else: to defuse a misunderstanding that was a result of ambiguous or
careless wordings in speech between two parties.

~~~
maxnoe
EVERY Movie and every TV series is dubbed for the German market.

It sometimes is hard to find cinemas that offer original voice.

~~~
pimmen
I'm Swedish and we almost _never_ dub entertainment, unless it's for kids. It
just drives me insane when I go abroad and listen to the dialogue being
completely butchered on TV. Imagine being the director of the movie and seeing
this, remembering all the hours you put into directing the actors to give your
vision life, and now your work is being mangled.

And then politicians in these countries wonder why they're so bad at
English...

~~~
k_sze
There's a quasi exception though: French dub of Japanese anime.

For some reason, the French language's intonations work really well to
accurately portray and convey the original tones in Japanese anime. e.g. Lupin
III (the anime) works really well in French dub.

English dubs usually fail to do the same. It's as though English just doesn't
work for the genre.

~~~
paganel
The Italian ones are really good, too. The Italian intro/“sigla” [1] for the
Lupin the 3rd anime series has stuck with me for 25 years, ever since I first
heard it.

[1] [https://youtu.be/AKmzwpALHg4](https://youtu.be/AKmzwpALHg4)

~~~
rasz
Grrr. I grew up with the misconception All Anime (dragon ball, gigi, daimos,
tsubasa, yattaman) was Italian due to 'Polonia 1' pirate TV station being run
by Italian businessman
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonia_1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonia_1)

example
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzm_bODiJwU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzm_bODiJwU)

------
PaulRobinson
Lists like these on Wikipedia drive me crazy.

As others have pointed out, there are still footmen, peddlers, Mudlarks (the
recently published book about it is great by the way), nursemaids, troubadors
and even arguably privateers working away in the World today. Their numbers
may be fewer, their fortunes and status somewhat smaller, but they haven't
disappered.

Some have also pointed out that in many cases the role exists, it's just the
name and nature of the job that has changed slightly over time.

So then we come to the definition of "obsolete", and it's this which prevents
me from editing the list and removing these: I would argue "no longer used"
does not apply, and somebody else would argue they are "out of date", which
arguably is true.

The community at Wikipedia is not a friendly one to engage with in such
debates, IME - it's defensive, cliquey and closed. As a newcomer, there is a
good chance I'd end up losing the argument. So, I don't edit Wikipedia. Ever.

What they have produced is in the whole, remarkable. However, lists like this
make me sad as they remind me of the closed shop nature of being able to
contribute.

~~~
fergie
"As a newcomer, there is a good chance I'd end up losing the argument."

Have you tried? You might find it slightly more welcoming that you think.

~~~
londons_explore
I think this is a misconception. Wikipedia has a big set of rules and
standards, and it turns out most first time contributors spend a lot of time
making a contribution, only for it to be reverted because it violates the
rules.

I think they need something like "Looks like you're new to editing! Make your
first edit together with someone who has experience.". They should then open
some kind of google-docs collaborative editor.

~~~
carlinmack
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold)

------
Jamwinner
Oddly, most of these still exist, but hve just chnged names. I must have
clicked on a dozen, only to discover that they are just obsolete descriptors,
and the roles live on. Which is interesting in a way I was not expecting.

~~~
HenryKissinger
I was a little surprised to see "line infantry" and "heavy infantry",
considering that grunt troops are pretty much the modern successors of line
infantry, and Rangers (for the US) and special forces are the modern
successors of heavy infantry.

~~~
Bnshsysjab
I’m sure higher end hotels would have lift operators too.

~~~
ofrzeta
There was a piece in the NYT a while ago about manually operated elevators in
NYC

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/nyregion/manual-
elevators...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/nyregion/manual-elevators-
operators.html)

------
baxtr
My favorite is the "knocker-up"!

 _A knocker-up, sometimes known as a knocker-upper, was a profession in
Britain and Ireland that started during and lasted well into the Industrial
Revolution, when alarm clocks were neither cheap nor reliable, and to as late
as the beginning of the 1920s. A knocker-up 's job was to rouse sleeping
people so they could get to work on time._

from Wikipedia

~~~
C1sc0cat
Its also a political term in the UK.

On the day of the election checking your known supporters have voted is still
called "knocking up"

~~~
auiya
Our political leaders in the US attempt to knock-up all their constituents as
well, but to a much different effect.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Knock up means something else completely different in American English.

------
keiferski
Knocker-ups are one of my favorites. Essentially human alarm clocks, they
would tap on windows with a long stick to quietly wake the room’s inhabitants.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker-
up](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker-up)

~~~
k_sze
Which makes me wonder: who would wake the knocker-upper so they go wake other
people on time?

Turtles all the way down. Or maybe a rooster?

~~~
TeMPOraL
You designate a knocker-upper knocker-upper, a person who goes to sleep with
the inhabitants, and the last thing they do is to wake the knocker-uppers up.

------
LanceH
Why do I feel like someone is going through this list today and opening a new
shop in Portland tomorrow?

~~~
hinkley
Tomorrow? It's only 9:15, there's plenty of time to start tonight!

~~~
reitzensteinm
Too unsafe until we bring the Lamplighters back.

------
cletus
So in researching my family tree I came across an occupation I’d never heard
of, doesn’t exist anymore and isn’t in this list: scutcher.

What is that? Someone who separates linen fibers from flax seeds, a job quite
literally replaced by the industrial revolution.

It makes me wonder if in another 200 years how many jobs will be looked at in
the same way. Hopefully, a lot.

~~~
bregma
A scutcher separates the bast fibers from the flax. It's the job of a thresher
to separate the seeds from the flax chaff. They're two different jobs, and you
can only scutch after retting and breaking but if you ret the flax, you can't
thresh any more.

~~~
PTOB
The entire linen-making process is shown here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFuj7sXVnIU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFuj7sXVnIU)

------
hbcondo714
I went on a guided tour in Australia early this year and the topic of
occupations came up. Our tour guide said he used to be a cartographer and then
switched to being a tour guide because "Google put him out of business". I
honestly didn't know what a cartographer was so I googled it and it's someone
who makes maps. I can see why he became a tour guide and why he blames Google.
I wonder about all the other cartographers out there; perhaps cartographer
should be on this list.

~~~
nexuist
Surely there are many cartographers that work on the Maps team? I doubt all of
that content can be generated directly from satellite images.

Furthermore there are many cartographers that work for e.g. oil companies and
the military. Google Maps provides a great service to consumers, but there are
thousands of map types that it does not support that both the public and
private sector need made.

~~~
bransonf
“Cartographer” was replaced by “Geospatial data scientist” or the like.

There is little market left for purely drawing maps. That is now just an
expected skill among those in the field of GIS.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
Maybe if they had _some_ cartographers in the maps team perhaps google would
understand the importance of a having a scale shown on a map _all_ the time.

A map is by definition drawn to scale, having a scale on the map is what makes
it a map. We may maintain proportions but by removing the scale, it simply
becomes a polished drawing with zero intuition of distance.

I am old enough that I navigated forest/mountain treks with a compass and
topographic map as a teen. To me not having a map scale when navigating to a
new place feels really disconcerting.

~~~
Rerarom
I never paid attention to the scale when using a map.

~~~
ghaff
So, if you're looking at a map of a city, you don't care whether you have to
walk 1/4 mile or 2 miles between two places?

~~~
Rerarom
This actually happened to me once - I walked for way longer than I expected (I
had looked at a map just to get directions not caring much about distances),
but anyway it was an errand I absolutely had to do that day, knowing in
advance how long it was going to take wouldn't have helped me (except maybe
psychologically).

Now, I'm not defending my actions, I just gave the example to see I was not
exaggerating.

~~~
ghaff
Maybe it's because I do a lot of hiking, but I'm always acutely aware of scale
when I'm looking at a map--and it annoys me if it's not immediately obvious.

------
rahuldottech
> A printer's devil was an apprentice in a printing establishment who
> performed a number of tasks, such as mixing tubs of ink and fetching type.
> Notable writers including Ambrose Bierce, Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain
> served as printer's devils in their youth.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer%27s_devil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer%27s_devil)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I thought it was principally sorting and setting type - the metal letters had
to be physically arranged (mirror image) in a small rack and screwed into a
tight frame. Tedious.

------
aba_cz
Galley slave
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley_slave](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley_slave)
is not really a job, is it? Maybe the title should be copied from Wikipedia
where it says "occupation" instead of "job".

------
ravenstine
> Peddler

Uh... peddlers still exist. Ever go to a holiday festival or parade? There's
always peddlers slinging shiny, spinny, glowy, useless doo-dads.

Anyone who's lived in California has seen roadside peddlers trying to sell
flowers, oranges, avocados, etc. Seems peddling is alive and well.

~~~
Anarch157a
The linked article itself contadicts the list by showing several examples of
modern peddleers. Pretty much every large city in tge world is filled with
them. That's a profession that will exists for as long as humanity does.

------
louis8799
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(job_description)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_\(job_description\))

Computer literally.

~~~
themodelplumber
I once stumbled across a group of friends doing just that, in order to
complete a project. While amusing, it worked and it was all they could think
to do at the time.

It made me wonder when checking out your link: If those friends could talk to
a real Computer (person), would that Computer (person) be able to give them
any practicable advice based on years of experience? Little tricks, or things
to watch out for? Was any wisdom lost to the ages when the paid Computer role
faded from the world at a broader scale?

~~~
pugio
Your questions reminded me of a wonderful Asimov story where he takes this to
a delightfully absurd extreme:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power)

Eerily relevant in our smartphone age.

------
tyingq
"Baby Farmer" is listed there as people that take on children solely for the
purpose of making money. That's a common complaint about the foster care
industry in the US. Not sure that one is obsolete just yet.

------
bsza
Missing from the list:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_hermit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_hermit)

~~~
auiya
Also missing from the list:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkman)

~~~
cyorir
There are still dairy companies that will deliver fresh milk directly to a
consumer's door! Although I expect most such "milkman" services to be subsumed
into more general grocery delivery services.

------
Bilters
A lamplighter is still employed by the city of Wroclaw. So the job is not 100%
obsolete but rather extremely rare.

~~~
ptsneves
Really? I live in Wroclaw and cannot recall any non electric lamps. Would you
care to elaborate?

~~~
Bilters
Sure; Last year I visited the place, at the cathedral island the lamps are
lighted every evening.[1] It's a great sight, the guy walks fast, so if you
want to make a beautiful photo you have to be quick. [1]
[https://www.getyourguide.com/wroclaw-l2036/wroclaw-
cathedral...](https://www.getyourguide.com/wroclaw-l2036/wroclaw-cathedral-
island-and-lamplighter-tour-t320638/)

~~~
DonaldFisk
There's a photo of him on the Lamplighter Wikipedia page:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamplighter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamplighter)

------
BurningFrog
And yet unemployment is the lowest in decades!

~~~
Retric
Bull, US employment rate at ~60.4% (2018) is down 4% from 2000 ~(64.4%). The
sharp drop in the late from 63% in 07 to 58% in 2010 shows this is not a
voluntary change.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/192398/employment-
rate-i...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/192398/employment-rate-in-the-
us-since-1990/)

PS: It was higher every year from 1990 to 2008 showing just how bad things are
right now.

~~~
BurningFrog
I'll happily agree that there was a huge economic crisis in 2008 that caused a
peak in unemployment.

My point though, is that automation, just like the last 250 years since
Industrialization started, has not caused unemployment on an aggregate level.
Instead an increase in production and living standard happens, decade after
decade.

~~~
Retric
The employment rate has dropped over time with the current vast numbers of
students, retired workers, and prisoners being a new thing. The official
unemployment rate ignores those populations, but economically it’s automation
that has enabled this shift.

Socially, some of this is muddled by stay at home mothers with automation like
washing machines making a dramatic difference in hours worked.

~~~
BurningFrog
I think much of that is voluntary. These people could get a job if they wanted
it, but they can live of savings.

Since a worker today produces ~30x as much as a worker 250 years ago (to the
extent it is calculable, that's where estimates land), It's not too surprising
many choose this path.

------
malkia
Imagine an RPG game, set in magical industrial Victorian era with lots of
these characters playing these roles... A broomsquire that you can upgrade to
squire, or a Dahomey Amazon! Man...

~~~
anon73044
Dishonored took quite a bit of this actually.

------
Jemm
Is Ninja really and obsolete occupation or is that just the ultimate a Ninja
move.

~~~
Anarch157a
Except for the social structures of the old clans, I like to think that the
ninja traditions are alive and well in the espionage business of today,
especially in black ops teams.

------
DonaldFisk
While they were still used, my mother was a Comptometer operator.
[https://www.jaapsch.net/mechcalc/comptometer.htm](https://www.jaapsch.net/mechcalc/comptometer.htm)

To use one required, for operations more complex than addition (e.g.
division), an understanding of arithmetic algorithms - similar to those used
in a CPU, except in decimal.

------
sandGorgon
I would like to add one from the gin world.

Ramos Gin Fizz or the New Orleans Gin Fizz is a drink that needs to be shaken
for a seriously long time to get its tall structure.

In the 1880s, there used to be "shaker boys" just for shaking the gin fizz -
[https://lettersandliquor.com/14-RAMOS-GIN-
FIZZ-1880s](https://lettersandliquor.com/14-RAMOS-GIN-FIZZ-1880s)

------
ilaksh
Soon to be added: truck driver, data entry clerk, etc.

Beyond that, people don't realize how powerful AI actually is and how close we
are to making it general purpose. AI can already automatically create
functions for just about anything given enough data. The only real problem is
that it generally provides a shallow and entangled understanding of the world.
But it _can_ automatically create an understanding.

So what they are working on is creating a better factored and more accurate
representation of the world automatically. In a way this is a matter of degree
of performance. You have basically a Manhattan Project scale effort at this.
All of the Turing Award winners, many geniuses at companies like Deep Mind,
Open AI, Microsoft, Tencent, Baidu. Also John Carmack. Plus thousands of
enthusiasts who have access to most of the same research which is posted on
arxiv and the same core open source tools.

It's strange to me how many people expect all of these geniuses (and largely
working together by sharing research openly) to continue to fail for the next
30-40 years.

------
bitfhacker
In the past weekend I saw the movie "Lisbon Story". The main character was a
"sound maker" for movies that were filmed with no sound (I don't know the
right term). His job consisted in reproduce the sounds of, for example, a
water splashing sound, a horse running, an egg frying, a pigeon flapping his
wings trying to eat...

~~~
Xophmeister
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(filmmaking)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_\(filmmaking\))

------
purplezooey
What do you mean obsolete, I've got an Alewife right here next to me.

~~~
mcv
That one struck me too. Ale and beer are still being made, and I'm sure there
are plenty of women doing that.

Still,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alewife_(trade)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alewife_\(trade\))
is mostly about the historical and outdated notions of the trade. In the
distant past, many trades were seen as either male or female trades, and
brewer is one that started out as a trade for women, and later became a trade
specifically for men (before finally, in modern times, opening up to
everybody).

It's really the notion that professions need to be for a specific gender
that's obsolete here.

------
asab
Ha, one of the entries is Hippeis:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippeis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippeis)

~~~
ToFab123
The last remaining few happen to live on the same small Thailand island as i
do. I am very happy to say that they are not extinct although they are
becoming fewer, unfortunately

~~~
twic
To be clear, you live on an island with Greek cavalrymen?

~~~
axaxs
I don't know why, but this made me laugh too hard. Thanks for this.

------
throwaway_2047
Ice cutting
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2eLl_WA7CQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2eLl_WA7CQ)

Almost.

------
cafard
I don't know whether anyone calls them that any longer, but the work of the
"gandy dancer" has not gone away. There is a union now pat of the Teamsters,
the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees:
[https://www.bmwe.org/default.aspx](https://www.bmwe.org/default.aspx)

------
LinuxBender
Garden Hermit sounds quite relaxing. I would love for someone to pay me to
live in their garden. Bonus points if I am allowed to stand like a statue and
stare at people. How do we revive this occupation and make it a trend?

------
avaku
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda_jerk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda_jerk)
\-- sounds like a modern smoothy barista :) not obsolete at all!

------
yetihehe
Hmm, seems like 'hetaira' is still not obsolete occupation.

------
gre
I always thought I'd be good at making logarithm tables by hand.

------
vortico
Missing: jQuery developer

------
hsjrbabdv_dbdbd
We have several elevator operators in our building. They sit at desks in the
service lifts and manage entry for people who don’t have card access to the
resident lifts.

------
mywacaday
A dark one
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_farming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_farming)

------
MEGMAIL
Yikes -- this one is insane. A priest hunter was a person who, acting on
behalf of the British government, spied on or captured Catholic priests during
Penal Times.

~~~
arbitrary_name
Probably should bring that one back to be honest...

------
symplee
We therefore need to reverse the technological progress that made these jobs
obsolete in order to create more jobs for obsolete workers.

------
Merrill
Based on recent discussions here, "keypunch operator" should be added to the
list.

------
ur-whale
Here's a neat one: "Computer (job description)"

------
sthottingal
Web developer - an obsolete occupation?!

~~~
de_watcher
You mean spider?

------
zoul
“Useful man”! So it’s official now.

~~~
rgrs
you mean the intern right?

------
matt-attack
Linotype operator? Type setter?

~~~
jvanderbot
Nay! Moveable type is still sometimes used to print that metalic lettering on
high end cards. Before college, I worked one of those machines.

------
neiman
Soon to be obsolete: a driver.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
My wife claims 'Editor' should be on the list. When word processors got
invented, editing tanked since everybody now thinks they can compose and edit
for themselves. Leading to the appalling state of printed literacy we have.

------
ninguem2
Are there still typists?

~~~
stebann
Yes. In some countries of South America we have typists for transcribing
litigations in the legal system. Of course we also have cameras and voice
recorders,but transcriptions are done faster with typists.

------
dxemy
If I wanted to make up an article for laughs, this would be a good category.

------
bradezone
Link-boys FTW

------
narag
Hoplite. No shit.

