Obsolete Jobs Quiz: You Won't Believe What They Had To Do

Powder monkey

For decades, the Navy employed boys as young as 11 to serve as powder monkeys, responsible for transporting gunpowder from a ship's hold to its cannons during battle. Then it dawned on the world that putting children to work in a battle zone was not a great practice.

An armourer

Armourers (or armorers) made weapons as well as suits of armour.

In a coal mine

Until child labor laws, coal mines employed boys as young as 8 to work as breakers, separating impurities from coal.

Chase dogs out of church

Don't you hate it when stray dogs interrupt your church service? Apparently, it was a real problem in the 1800s—and knock-knobblers were the ones to call.

Pinsetters

Hopefully none of those bowling alley ruffians mistook a pinsetter for a pin!

Groom of the stool

The "groom of the King's close stool" was a lucky fellow whose job was to follow the King around with a portable potty (stool) and associated toiletries and assist as needed through the day. Grunt work? Maybe, but the perk of immediate access to the King made it a highly desirable position, typically filled by aristocrats. Pictured here is King George III (of American Revolution fame), who hired no less than nine separate grooms of the stool during his reign. The practice continued until the turn of the 20th century.

Button factory

Talk about tedious. Back when buttons were made of bone, the extra fragments were used as the base (mold) for silk-covered buttons. The bone mold turner's sole job was, as it sounds, to turn the bone mold as it was wrapped in silk thread.

Singing

Ah, those macho Navy men. They loved to sing songs like "Haul Away Joe", "Huckleberry Hunting", and "Ralloping Randy Dandy O!"

Gandy dancer

These essential workers from the early railroad days were eventually replaced by machines.

Human excrement

Well, someone had to deal with it! In the Middle Ages, gong farmers were the unfortunate souls charged with collecting human waste from the cesspits where the whole village did their business. Doing a thorough job necessitated hopping on in, which might explain why gong farmers were only allowed to work at night (and often restricted in where they could live). Later called "night soil men," the job existed until the advent of modern plumbing and hygiene regulations.

All of the above

Also called a hedge warden, a hayward was a medieval groundsman who oversaw hedges, fences, pastures, and livestock.

Alchemist's workshop

Lungs worked the bellows (i.e. fanned the fire) in alchemists' workshops, breathing in clouds of toxic fumes all the livelong day.

Inspector of weights and measures

Before there was an official Office of Weights and Measures, ponderators were out there ensuring fair trade in towns across the colonies.

Logging

Logs are heavy. . . but they float. In its early 20th century heyday, the logging industry relied on river pigs to transport logs from camp to mill—a physically strenuous and extremely dangerous undertaking. Pigs needed brute strength as well as the sure-footedness and balance to cross over the bobbing, spinning timber; those who slipped were crushed on their way down to an icy death.

Rag and bone men

Once a common site, rag and bone men collected cast-off items to sell to manufacturers, like rags used for paper making. Also called bone pickers, these collectors were also scavenging for animal bones to sell to glue factories.

Alcohol

During Prohibition, many hush shopkeepers made a pretty penny selling their homemade brew.

Dog excrement

An occupation of children and old women, pure finders collected dog waste from the street to sell for use in tanning leather.

Steal corpses

More grimly known as body snatchers, resurrectionists dug up corpses from graves to sell to the rapidly developing medical profession, which paid big bucks for the exhumed cadavers. The job was so well compensated, in fact, that grave robbing became a near epidemic for a period.

Soda jerk

From the 1920s to the 1950s, drugstores commonly operated on-site soda fountains, where uniformed soda jerks prepared ice cream sodas (carbonated water + ice cream).

Making corsets

Until the middle of the 19th century, corsets were known as "stays".