NPR just posted a great slide show of jobs that (mostly) no longer exist. Check it out at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124251060
I’m feeling pretty old myself, because I remember many of them:
- Lector
- Elevator Operator
- Copy Boy
- Pinsetter
- River Driver
- Iceman
- Lamplighter
- Milkman
- Switchboard Operator
- Typist in a Typing Pool
- Typesetter
- Telegraph Operator
How many of these do you remember? Did you ever have one of these jobs?
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p.s. I dropped your name on Gina's post, Barb. ;)
I’m in love with the milkman….my partner and his dad have been in the milk bottling business for over 50 years….yes they were door to door delivery men….moved on to bottling milk….complete with dairy bar, now turned into a full service restaurant since the dairy closed. We have a collection of over 600 milk bottles!!!
YES! Telephone operator with the old switchboard, 1971, oh my. Typist, 1969. Nurses aid, trained on the job, 1967, and still going strong, yea!…TRACK
Ok – I’m not asking anyone to age themselves – although I’ve heard of a lot of these – some I’m curious about. What exactly is a Lector? And I would like to know what a pinsetter and river driver does (or did). I was a switchboard operator in high school – and in some old-school companies they still call Receptionists Switchboard Operators (although it’s now a telephone panel instead of a board screwed to the wall with a thousand wires coming from it to the telephone). It’s funny how some things change – yet stay the same. I’m truly hoping that this is just a sign of the times and that the jobs that have been excised today will be replaced with newer and better ones – SOON!!!
I think a pinsetter worked at the bowling alley and actually reset the pins by hand before the electronic version
People who are not aging are dead!!…Track..:-/
I like the slide show, interesting.
my mother was a elevator operator
pinsetter set the pins at the bowling alley dated someone in the 70s that did that
I can’t type well myself. So, for a time, I owed my job to the wonderful ladies (yes they were all female) in the typing pool who took my dictaphone ramblings and turned them into professional letters – and corrected my mistakes on the fly.
There are many jobs that no longer exist. I was an Architectural Drafter in the 80′s. Like Rip Van Winkle, I stayed home raising my kids for 15 years and now I’m back in the workplace and everything is done by Computer Aided Design.
I’m a dinosaur. I do miss paper and pencil, the drafting board, and even the amonia diazo printing. There was a pride of accomplishment that went along with the job. Each drafter established a distictive style that was recognized thoughout the local industry without ever meeting the drafter in person. Now it’s all uniform and impersonal ( and all too often inaccurate because the kids never learned drafting before the computer)
I was also trained in typesetting. Not much call for that anymore either.
You are right and I miss the personal styles. I still have a “T” square, drafting pencils, templates….TRACK
My husband says he agrees with you 100%. He has a hard time hiring good CAD operators and says it’s because many do not understand the basics behind the pictures they create well enough.
Never did typesetting. But did a stint at a newspaper composing ads on the 70′s. Preprinted letters, numbers and pictures, placed on a board with rubber cement, then photographed.
I remember them all !.But,I was a switchboard operator,a short time.
Just think how farming has changed. We grew up chopping and picking cotton. Totally back breaking work even for a young person. Hated it with a passion.
Yes I was a telephone operator for 7 years, I worked the old cord board back in the 70′s. And I loved it!