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In 2018, more and more jobs are getting cut back due to advancements in technology. As wonderful as it is to have these advancements in areas that desperately need it, it also means lots of people have lost work. There are many jobs from decades ago that don’t exist anymore. If you asked your child or grandchild what a “lamplighter” is, they’d have absolutely no idea what you were talking about! 1. Lamplighter Way back in the day, street lamps did not have electric lights in them. Instead, lamps were lit every evening by a lamplighter who used a wick on a long pole. Lights would then be put out in the morning using the same pole, this time with a hook on the end. 2. Log Driver A log driver used to move logs (tree trunks) from a forest to sawmills and pulp mills downstream on a river using the current. It was the way to move logs in the early logging industry in both North America and Europe. Understandably, this method didn’t always work with all tree types, as some are much denser than others and didn’t float well. 3. Enemy Aircraft Detection Before there was radar, this was the way of the world in between 1917 to 1940. Acoustic locators were used to detect noises from enemy aircrafts as they were approaching. By the end of World War II, radar had become the norm, which eliminated the need for this job. 4. Milkman Do you remember the days of walking out of your front door and fresh milk was waiting for you? In the ‘50s and ‘60s this was a staple of daily life. But once it became cheaper and easier to get milk from the local grocery store, milkmen become unnecessary. 5. Elevator Operator It is very, very rare to see an elevator operator these days. But back in the day, it was standard for elevators to have an attendant that manually operated the elevator. It wasn’t as simple as pressing a button originally, as many older elevators had a huge lever that the attendant would need to pull. 6. Bowling Alley Pinsetter When you used to go bowling, there wasn’t a machine that reset the pins. It was a person! They reset the fallen pins, cleared away any knocked over pins, and they even had to return the bowling ball to the bowler. 7. Switchboard Operator Do you remember the days of dialing a zero and speaking to an actual person? In the early days of telephones and up through the 1960s, switchboard operators manually connected calls by putting the phone plugs into the appropriate jacks. Go to the next page to find out which other jobs are no more! 8. Rat Catcher Rat catchers might not exist far and wide today, but it was once a booming profession. In order to try and prevent the spread of diseases in Europe, people were paid to catch rats, particularly during the Black Plague. Nowadays, rat issues would just be handled by pest control. 9. Ice Cutter Ice cutting isn’t just a profession from Frozen. Long before that Disney movie premiered, ice cutting was a big profession during the 19th and 20th century. Typically, ice cutters waited until at least a foot of ice had frozen above the water before they cut it. This was replaced when refrigeration methods became practical. 10. Factory Lector Working in the factory was probably never much fun, but for some factory workers, they at least got a little bit of entertainment. Lectors (or readers) would entertain factory workers, typically by reading books or newspapers aloud. 11. Resurrectionist This was a job that people might not have boasted about having. A resurrectionist was also known as a “body snatcher.” At the time during the 19th century, universities were banned from using human bodies for research, so they resorted to less-than-legal ways of obtaining bodies to use as cadavers. 12. Computer Hidden Figures was based on real people and computers were very popular a while back (before we got the kind of computers we can have right on our laps). The profession began in the 17th century and it was someone computing information, typically mathematical problems and calculations, all in their head and then writing it down. If you liked this article, please SHARE it on Facebook with your friends and family! H/T: Our Thinking / Bored Panda

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