Rare jobs from distant times

Who woke up people before alarm clocks? 10 professions that went obsolete

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From milliners and stevedores to knocker-ups and fletchers, time has taken away a good number of trades. Social, economic, and technological changes, along with the emergence of new consumer habits, have led to the disappearance of certain jobs that were once popular and profitable. Here is a list of 10 English words describing occupations and professions that are rare or have become obsolete but will certainly leave you speechless.

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Did you know that women were in charge of the ale brewing process before industrialization? And they even had a special name for their profession: alewife. An alewife was a woman who kept an ale-house, that is, a brewster. There are records of the use of the word in England dating back to 1393.

Throughout the Middle Ages, before the Black Death struck Europe, it was considered a female profession that helped women earn extra income. Although this job was later taken over by men, until about the 17th century some women still continued to brew for both domestic and commercial use.

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Long before fast fashion and industrial mass production, people used to take care of their shoes as if they were gold. If something happened to them and they had to fix them, they would go to a cobbler. The word derives from Middle English cobeler, cobelere which meant "mender of shoes."

Originally, the term cobbler was used pejoratively to refer to those who were not very good at their trade. Over time, it came to be used for those who only mended shoes to differentiate them from shoemakers.

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You probably know what a fishmonger is, but what about a costermonger? In medieval London, costermongers were street apple sellers. The term appeared in written English for the first time in the 16th century. It is derived from the words costard —an apple variety— and monger, meaning seller. Over time the term was extended to any fruit and vegetable vendor who roamed the towns pushing carts or carrying baskets.

Costermongers were especially popular during the Victorian era. It is believed that at the time there were between 30,000 and 45,000 costermongers in London. Unfortunately, in the second half of the 20th century, they began to decline and their famous melodic sales poems and chants disappeared from the streets.

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Ok, this is not a profession that is necessarily extinct, but you may know it by another name: Hatter or hat maker. The word milliner dates back to the 16th century and originally meant someone from Milan. It referred to Italian merchants who sold everything from hats to gloves and jewelry.

Over time, the term expanded, and starting in the 18th century it was more closely related to women who made bonnets and other accessories. By the early 20th century it is believed that there were more than 80,000 people, mostly women, working as milliners in New York alone.

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During the Industrial Revolution, in countries like Britain, Ireland, and the Netherlands, a large mass of workers had to report to work at specific times. But there was a problem: Clocks were expensive and inaccessible to the working class. Luckily, a new profession emerged, the knocker-up or knocker-upper, who was in charge of waking people up every morning so they could get to work on time.

This job was usually done by pregnant women and older men. Knocker-uppers used a cane or stick to bang on their customers’ doors. Others used pea shooters. It was a fairly profitable profession until the mid-20th century, although in some towns of industrial England, you could still see knockers-up walking the streets in the 1970s.

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According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a stevedore is "one who works at or is responsible for loading and unloading ships in port." The term was borrowed from Portuguese or Spanish and introduced into English by sailors. In the United States, the words longshoreman or dockworker are more common.

Stevedores have existed since ancient times but their role has evolved through time. In the Medieval period, dockworkers played a crucial role, but they were especially important during the Industrial Revolution when trade volumes increased exponentially. Nowadays, this job is close to extinction, and the few stevedores remaining mostly move around big containers through heavy machinery.

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It seems that taxes have always been a touchy subject. Do you know what tax collectors were called in medieval England? Catchpoles. The word is a combination of Old English cace, "catch" and medieval Latin pullus, meaning _"_chicken." It turns out that in popular belief, tax debtors were as difficult to catch as a cheeky hen on a farm.

In the early days of this profession, chatchpoles were freelancers who charged a commission on the debt they managed to collect. And for that, they used any method they considered necessary. Later, their job became official and they began to work directly for the bailiff, leaving behind their more violent ways.

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This profession is now a bit different and has a different name, however, it was an important trade during the Middle Ages. A draper was a seller of cloth, especially fabric that was used to make garments. The first known use of the term in English is from the 14th century and derives from Old French draper, "to weave, make cloth."

Some historians regard this period as the birth of fashion due to the increase in fabric production. Clothing was no longer considered a mere utilitarian good but began to carry a symbolic capital. In this sense, it is no coincidence that the profession of draper became so popular and profitable around this time.

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Although today it may be hard to believe that this was a profession, it was very popular in England during the 18th and 19th centuries. If you read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein you probably know what we are talking about. In those days, resurrectionists were commonly employed by anatomists to exhume the bodies of the recently dead for research.

Due to advances in science, corpses were a commodity in high demand. While this job was not well regarded, technically the resurrectionists were not doing anything illegal because the bodies were not considered anyone's property. However, the rise of gangs and the increase in murders meant that the trade began to disappear, and by the 1850s it no longer existed.

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The first recorded use of the term fletcher dates back to the 14th century. It derives from the French word flèche, which means "arrow". In the Middle Ages, fletchers were in charge of making arrows, which were the number one chosen battlefield weapon at the time.

Perhaps pursuing a career as a fletcher today doesn't make much sense, but back then they were in high demand. An army going to war might have needed to take hundreds of thousands of arrows with them, so they needed trained men who could make them of good quality. By all accounts, a talented fletcher could produce up to 10 arrows per hour. Sounds like a lot, don’t you think?

CITY OF MANY NAMES

Why Is She The "Windy City"? 11 Stories Of Chicago Nicknames

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Chicago is not even that windy. Anyone who’s also been to Amarillo, Texas, or Boston, Massachusetts can tell you that. So, why and when did we start referring to Chicago as "the Windy City"? Or "Second City"? Or Chiberia, Chitown, or the City of Big Shoulders? Chicago is the third largest city in the U.S. and has a long-standing history as a beacon of culture, architecture, industry, and technology. Let’s explore the origin of the many names that journalists, artists, and residents have come up with throughout the decades.

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Did you know that Chicago wasn’t the first "Windy City"? No, the first city to be given that title was Green Bay, Wisconsin. It was called that as early as 1856. However, twenty years later, a great rivalry between Cincinnati and Chicago was unfolding. In an effort to mock the town that was its sports and meatpacking rival, Cincinnati’s press started to repeatedly refer to their neighbor town as "that windy city".

The nickname stuck, even though Chicago isn’t even among the 10 windiest cities in the U.S. The top spot is said to belong to Amarillo, Texas, which has an annual average wind speed of 12.9 miles per hour.

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There is a misconception that Chicago gave itself this nickname after successfully rebuilding and recovering from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Historians insist that this is not where the name originated and that there are no documents to back that story.

"Second City," just like "Windy City," was born out of mockery. Towards the end of the 19th century, after having annexed neighboring suburbs, Chicago had, in fact, become the second-largest city in the U.S. by population. The title fluctuated over time to refer to Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and then back to Chicago. But in 1952, a publication by New Yorker writer A.J. Liebling settled it forever. He had lived in Chicago for a few months, which was long enough for him to decide he hated it. Lebling wrote a humorous recollection called Chicago: The Second City, poking fun at it, and the text became so popular that the moniker stuck.

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The first recorded use of this term appears in the1890s. Back then, a trend was to call important cities by their first letter or letters and add "town". Thus words like O-Town (for Orlando), H-Town (for Houston), and Chi-Town (for Chicago) were formed.

Chicago’s shortened version can also be found as "Chi-Town" or "Chi-town". Even though some official organizations have adopted the tag and run with it (for events like the Chi-Town Rumble or the Chi-Town Rising), some citizens of Chicago dislike it and cringe at its use.

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In 1914, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sandburg published his poem "Chicago." This one was the first in a long series titled Chicago Poems, which celebrates and praises the industrial and cultural endeavors of Sandburg’s chosen home.

"City of Big Shoulders" appears in the fifth line of the free verse poem, right after describing the city as "Stormy, husky, brawling." That is only one of the names Sandburg uses throughout the text. Another of the nicknames that stuck through time is the one that opens the poem: "Hog Butcher for the World," referring to the city’s iconic meatpacking industry.

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You might have guessed that "Chiberia" is a portmanteau of "Chicago" and "Siberia", and you might have guessed why. Chicago is not the coldest city in the country. However, in 2014, it came close to breaking its cold temperature record which had been in place since 1983, when it had reached −57°F (−49°C).

During that historically low cold wave of 2014, Richard Castro, a National Weather Service meteorologist, coined the term online. On his way to work one February day, Castro came up with that term and tweeted it. The tweet went viral, and other news media picked it up. Soon, "Chiberia" flooded gift shops appearing in sweatshirts and mugs. The nickname has been used since then as a reminder of Chicago’s harsh weather.

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This name is a direct translation of the motto adopted by the government of Chicago in the 1830s: Urbs in Horto. In Latin, this means "City in a Garden," and it is written on the city’s seal. In the 19th century, however, the motto did not refer to the present or future, but to the past. It was a nod towards the prairies and beaches that existed in the Chicago area before the expansion of the city.

Nowadays, the green spaces in Chicago have expanded to cover 8,000 acres. That is 8.3% of the city’s size. The largest ones are Lincoln Park and Burnham Park.

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This name is the reference that appears in the state anthem of Illinois: "...Till upon the inland sea, stands thy great commercial tree." The words were written by Civil War veteran Charles H. Chamberlin in 1890. That year, a campaign was in place to host the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and composing the Illinois State Song was one of their strategies. The campaign was successful and the event is now remembered as the Chicago World’s Fair.

The song features plenty of references to nature, including the prairies, rivers, and wilderness found in the state. Within it, Chicago stands out in the second verse, referenced in the lines "Till upon the inland sea, stands thy great commercial tree, turning all the world to thee, Illinois, Illinois."

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This tagline is beloved by tourism agencies promoting the city. Its origin is in a tune sung by Frank Sinatra in the 1964 movie Robin and the 7 Hoods. In the film, Sinatra’s character, Robin, is greeted by a cheering crowd when he comes out of jail. In celebration and gratitude, he sings, "This is my kind of town, Chicago is."

Interestingly, some years earlier, Sinatra had popularized another song referencing the city: "Chicago (That Toddlin’ Town)." The name references Toddle, a dance style that had been famous in the city in the 1920s when the song was first published. Since the release of Sinatra’s version of that song, "That Toddling Town" has become another nickname for Chicago.

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We know that Chicago is not on the East Coast or the West Coast. It is instead on what is sometimes colloquially called the Third Coast of the U.S., referring to the area of the Great Lakes. Even though Michigan is the state with the longest shoreline of the 48 lower states, Chicago has earned this nickname for being the largest city in the Great Lakes region.

What helped further solidify the nickname for Chicago was the book The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream, published by author Thomas Dyja in 2013.

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This nickname was born from the aforementioned 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago World’s Fair). The same fair also gave rise to the label "The City Beautiful." That was the name given to an architectural and urban planning movement that sought to beautify the main cities of the countries.

The fair was an opportunity to display some of the principles proposed by this movement. For this purpose, an exposition was directed by architect Daniel Burnham. His team built a modern city showcasing classical uniform buildings, all painted in white, in a style that would become known as monumentalism. This model city was called the "White City." Both this and "The City Beautiful" have become enduring references to Chicago.

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This last nickname comes from the notion shared by some writers that Chicago is the last Great American City. Yes, even greater than New York, they claim. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Norman Mailer made that grand statement in his book Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968).

Something similar was declared by Robert J. Sampson’s 2012 study Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect. In this study, he proposed that Chicago was "arguably the most quintessential American city." Chicagoans, of course, were proud of these labels, and some have used the term to crown the city ever since.