Since the dawn of civilization, a key part of ensuring that they work and survive is the labor of humans. Whether that manifested itself as farmers, builders, or politicians, each role played a vital part in helping the community grow and advance. There are so many jobs that used to be very necessary for society, but due to things such as technology advancements and societal changes, these jobs are no longer needed. I think it’s very interesting and necessary to look back on these jobs to be able to further understand how the world has changed over time. It is also interesting to compare the loss of these professions to see what professions we currently have that may one day join this list.
Telephone Operator
In the early days of the telephone, calls were unable to be made directly between users. Instead, they needed an intermediary — a person to connect the call from one subscriber wires to another’s. This job was a telephone operator and it was a very vital role to the emergence of telephone calls and changing the communication game for the entire world. The job started with an idea from inventor George W. Coy, who attended one of Alexander Graham Bell’s — the inventor of the telephone — lectures in April of 1877. Coy had worked in the telegraph business during the Civil War and he soon made a deal with Bell to set up the very first telephone exchange in the United States. The first ever switchboard was designed and built by Coy himself in New Haven, Connecticut, and began operation on January 28th, 1878. This job was historically dominated by women, who began to take over the industry in the beginning of the 20th century, however, Coy had actually begun by employing young boys to do the job. These young boys proved to be the wrong choice due to their rowdiness and tendency to be rude to the customers. In fact, Marion May Dilts wrote in her book, The Telephone in a Changing World, “when some other diversion held their attention, they would leave a call unanswered for any length of time, and then return the impatient subscriber’s profanity with a few original oaths.” The job switched over to women when the company decided to look for workers that would be more tentative, gentle, and not cuss out the customers. It worked, and by the 1930s, there were 235,000 female operators. Telephone operator numbers began to drop in the 1930s when the telephone technology advanced and began to allow customers to dial another phone directly without the need for an operator. Of course, over time this auto or direct form of telephone began to take over and soon enough the job became unnecessary. Interestingly enough, there are still a few telephone operators today. In 2021, there were around 4,000 telephone operators but it is still decreasing as telephone companies begin to completely eliminate the job.
Knocker-upper
If you’ve ever wondered how people woke up before the invention of alarm clocks, well look no further because the answer falls to the historic job of Knocker-uppers. This job was born out of necessity in Britain and Ireland due to the Industrial Revolution, which changed the traditional methods of walking up with the Sun or to the crow of a rooster. Knocker-uppers would go around and tap on the windows of customers to wake them up using long sticks, soft hammers, rattles, and peashooters. This job was such an iconic part of life in Britain and Ireland that it is mentioned in one of the country’s best known novels, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. In the novel, a character named Pip makes a comment about another character, Mr. Wopsle, being “knocked-up” and that being the cause of his temper. It also has made its mark in historical events including a knocker-upper named Robert Paul being the person that found the body of one of Jack the Ripper’s first victims, May Nichols. Apparently, Paul had told the police that he did not see why the situation would have to interfere with his knocker-upper duties for that day. The fall of the knocker-upper –– despite its extreme popularity –– came with the rise of the alarm clock, which became more common in the early 1900s. However, there were a few knocker-uppers in Britain in the 1960s and there was even a headlining article written for the The Buckingham Post titled, “Human Alarm Clock Finally Retires,” about a 84 year-old Knocker-upper who was finally retiring from the trade. Of course, in the modern era –-– where many people simply use their phone as their alarm clock —– we can’t imagine having someone tap on our windows to wake us up but during its prime, it was definitely one of the most vital jobs of Industrial Britain.
Gong Farmer
The last job that I’m highlighting today is definitely one of the more odd historical jobs that don’t exist anymore. Many know that England used the chamber pot for centuries, a small ceramic pot that functioned as a portable or nocturnal toilet, and that the use of them only truly stopped in the mid-20th century. However, we are going to focus on a specific part of the usage of chamber pots which included emptying the pots onto the streets around 10pm every night. Of course, that meant that there had to be someone working out in the streets removing the human excrement out from the side of the street so that it didn’t bother the citizens the next day. Gong farmers, the name given to them based on the old Medieval English word for toilet and fecal matter, were the workers that went and disposed of the matter late at night. They are mostly cited for working in castles, going in late at night and disposing of the human excrement that complied at the castle over a period of time. Thankfully, this job was thwarted by the rise of the flushing toilet and indoor plumbing. A fun fact that I like is that the early designs for what would eventually evolve into the flushing toilet were created by a man named Sir John Harington, who was the godson of Queen Elizabeth I. Gong farmers were incredibly important to major cities, such as London, during the era of the Tudors and were very necessary to the functioning of the city. Today, they have been much forgotten but we cannot forget the dirty work that they did to advance society –– at least in England. (I unfortunately could not find a photo for this job).
There are many many more jobs that have been lost to time or have fizzled out due to technological advancements. To me, they are more than silly jobs that I’m thankful that I will never have to work, but also clear pathways that tell us so much about what life was like in the past. One day, historians will look at some of the jobs we have now and speak of them in the same way that I spoke about these jobs — that is one of my favorite things about studying history. We are currently making history that will some day be taught in classrooms and lecture halls. I’m sure telephone operators and certainly gong farmers had no idea that they were making history as they simply clocked into work, but they did and it’s fascinating to look back on and study. Who knows what job is next on the chopping block, but I know one day its effect on society will be studied as well.