12 Vintage Jobs That Don’t Exist Anymore

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.

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