This is a list of obsolete occupations. To be included in this list an obsolete occupation must in the past have employed significant numbers of workers (hundreds or thousands as evidenced by, for example, census data). Rare occupations are excluded; for example, there were only 27 people in England & Wales who listed their occupation as phrenologist in the 1861 United Kingdom census. To be included in this list an occupation must be completely, or to a great extent, obsolete. For example, there are still a few lamplighters retained for ceremonial or tourist purposes, but in the main the occupation is now obsolete. Only occupations which are notable, well-defined, and adequately documented in secondary sources are included in this list.
Causes for occupations to become obsolete
edit- Technological/scientific/process efficiency change,[1][2] for example making lime in factories on a large scale rather than by lime-burners on a small scale. In recent times, the workplace impact of artificial intelligence has arisen as a concern for widespread job changes and/or decline.[3][4]
- Cultural/fashion change, for example hoop skirt and crinoline manufacturers were significant employers in the 1850s and 1860s but they declined significantly in later years as fashions changed.
- Safety/security change, for example climbing boys became politically unacceptable because of the danger to children involved in the job.
- Social change, e.g. the Workhouse as a way of dealing with the poor, or the elimination of much child labour so that they could attend school.
- Debunked as pseudoscience, for example phrenologists[5][6]
- Environmental change: over-farming, over-exploitation and deforestation. For example, the trading of ivory has become heavily restricted over recent decades, especially in the Western world, following the international CITES agreement and local legislation, which has put ivory carvers out of work.
- Legal/regulatory change, for example the Victorian-era law that made available more cadavers to medical schools, thus signalling the death-knell to body snatchers;[7] or the passing of the 18th (1919) and 21st (1933) amendments to the US constitution leading to the rise and fall of the bootlegger trade.[8]
 |
| Occupation | Description of occupation | Reason for occupation ending | Start date | End date | Refs. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armourer (chain mail) | Armourers constructed chain mail by riveting together iron or steel rings. Chain mail was more flexible and less tailored to an individual than the later plate armour. | For the wealthy, plate armour was preferred to chain mail as it provided better protection, however chain mail continued to be used by other soldiers until modern firemans rendered it ineffective in preventing serious injury. | 3rd century BCE | 17th century | [9] |
| Armourer (plate armour) | Armourers constructed a suit of armour by fitting armour to the individual wearer like a tailor. A full suit of high quality fitted armour was very expensive and restricted their clientele exclusively to the wealthy. | The development of powerful firearms made all but the finest and heaviest plate armour obsolete. | 14th century | 17th century | [10] |
| Oakum picker | Oakum, a preparation of tarred fibers used to seal gaps, was recycled from old tarry ropes, which were unravelled and reduced to fibre. This activity was a common occupation in prisons and workhouses, where inmates who could not do heavy labour were put to work picking oakum. | The activity became uneconomic as the labour cost exceeded the value of the recycled material. | unknown | 19th century | [11] |
| Lamplighter | Lamplighters toured public streets at dusk, lighting outdoor fixtures by means of a wick on a long pole. At dawn, the lamplighter would return to put them out using a small hook on the same pole. | Electric street lighting, which does not require lamplighters, replaced candles and oil and gas lamps. Additionally, gas lighting is more expensive than electric lighting. | 16th century | 20th century | [12][13] |
| Limeburner | Limeburners loaded, fired, cooled and unloaded a lime kiln in a one-week cycle. The work was physically strenuous and somewhat dangerous as the end-product (lime or CaO) is caustic. | Local small-scale kilns became increasingly unprofitable, and they gradually died out through the 19th century. They were replaced by larger industrial plants with more efficient kilns. | 7500–6000 BCE | 1920s | [14] |
| Sawyer | A sawyer sawed wood using a pitsaw, either in a saw pit, or with the log on trestles above ground. | The sawyer cut lumber to length for the building market (now done more efficiently in a sawmill), and for the consumer market (now often done in a home improvement store). | 18th century | 20th century | [15] |
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Autor, David H. (2015-08-01). "Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation". Journal of Economic Perspectives. 29 (3): 3–30. doi:10.1257/jep.29.3.3.
- ^ Bix, Amy Sue (2000). Inventing Ourselves Out of Jobs? Americas Debate over Technological Unemployment, 1929- 1981. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 376. ISBN 0-8018-6244-2.
- ^ Howard, John (2019-11-01). "Artificial intelligence: Implications for the future of work". American Journal of Industrial Medicine. 62 (11): 917–926. doi:10.1002/ajim.23037. ISSN 0271-3586. PMID 31436850. S2CID 201275028.
- ^ "Impact of AI on Jobs: Jobocalypse on the Horizon?". 14 July 2023.
- ^ Wihe, J. V. (2002). "Science and Pseudoscience: A Primer in Critical Thinking". Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. California: Skeptics Society. pp. 195–203.
- ^ Hines, T. (2002). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. New York: Prometheus Books. p. 200.
- ^ Richardson, Ruth (1989). Death, dissection, and the destitute. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 426. ISBN 9780140228625. Retrieved 2024-09-04.
- ^ Allsopp, Kenneth (1961). The Bootleggers: The Story of Chicago's Prohibition Era. Four Square. p. 512. Retrieved 2024-09-04.
- ^ Stone, G.C. (1934): A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms And Armor in All Countries and in All Times, Dover Publications, New York
- ^ Curl, Michael. "The Industry of Defence: A Look at the Armour Industry of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century". Medieval Warfare, vol. 2, no. 1, 2012, pp. 38–42. JSTOR 48578631. Accessed 17 June 2021.
- ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Oakum". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 935.
- ^ Schivelbusch, Wolfgang (1987). "The Policing of Street Lighting". Yale French Studies (73): 61–74. doi:10.2307/2930197. JSTOR 2930197.
- ^ Cambre, Aren (30 October 2005). "Gas Lamps are Expensive".
- ^ Carran, D.; Hughes, J.; Leslie, A.; Kennedy, C. (2012). "A Short History of the Use of Lime as a Building Material Beyond Europe and North America". International Journal of Architectural Heritage. 6 (2): 117–146. doi:10.1080/15583058.2010.511694. S2CID 111165006.
- ^ A book of English trades: being a library of the useful arts. Swindon: English Heritage. 2006 [1818]. pp. 60–61. ISBN 978 1 85074 978 3. Retrieved 2024-09-08.
