This post continues the library’s recognition of Labor Day. A few weeks ago, librarian Carla wrote about the history behind the holiday, going all the way back to 1882. Having a dedicated day helps us to consider society’s progress over the years more broadly. The nature of work and the standardization of jobs evolve as society and its needs evolve, reminding us that what we do affects how we live (and vice versa). Today, we look at a few of the professions that, while no longer around, were once considered stable and valuable occupations in our workforce.
Milkmen
Long before Netflix and Amazon Prime, the dairy industry began a home delivery service model to meet the average family’s ongoing needs for fresh milk. What started as an idea by rural dairy farmers in the late 1700s eventually became an industry standard: cultivating a list of individual families on a repeated milk delivery route was a sure way to both ensure a sustainable source of income for those farmers and meet the needs of families.
It wasn’t just about convenience. In those days, there weren’t grocery and convenience stores on every corner, and not everyone had transportation to begin with. Though moms in the 40s and 50s could just send their kids to nearby stores with the red wagon, the long distances in those earlier years necessitated other modes of transportation, which was often by horse and starting in the early morning hours. As one retired milkman remembers, “I used to meet the milkman at four in the morning and help him with his round on the horse and cart till 6.30am. Then I’d go home and do whatever jobs I had indoors before going to school.”
But one of the biggest reasons families needed home delivery was refrigeration. When the Frigidaire was invented in 1919 as the first self-contained home use refrigerator, it retailed for $775, equivalent to more than $12,000 in today’s economy – a luxury not many families could afford. With milk being perishable, families couldn’t afford the risk of purchasing too much volume at a time, so home milk delivery was a valuable way to meet the needs of those families.
Today, we have cars and buses, Winn-Dixies and Whole Foods, and a plethora of refrigerators, so the need isn’t nearly as high. While there are a few dedicated milkmen out there still making door-to-door deliveries, for the most part, the reliance on milkmen has soured.
A cowboy's story (20:31) - In this video, a dairy farmer in Ecuador explains how his family went from producing and delivering milk for local consumption to learning the technical methods needed to develop quality milk suitable for factory processing.
Milkman Delivers Frozen Orange Juice! (01:27) - This segment of 1931 (Year by Year: 1929-1967) shows a 1931 newsreel highlighting the novel addition of orange juice delivered by the milkman along with bottled milk.
Our Town: Daily Life in Grover's Corners (03:02) - This brief 1940 segment of Our Town captures how Grover's Corners Dairy used a horse-drawn buggy to deliver milk in a small-town community.
The WPA Film Library; U.S. Film Recruits Women into the Industrial Sector During World War II ca. 1943 (02:54) - A severe shortage of male workers led to the widespread recruitment of women into the labor force during World War II. Many women soon began to work in jobs that were previously held by men, including construction, railroad jobs, and milk delivery routes.
Switchboard Operators
The history of telephones is just fascinating to read, and most adult-age generations have witnessed the wild evolution of phones over the years. These days, you can often eventually get to a phone company’s customer service representative with some trickery and a bit of calculus, but some of us are old lucky enough to remember when live operators were always available at the other end of our landlines. And the history behind that role is as fascinating as the phone itself.
When the working telephone system was first introduced to those who could afford a telephone in their homes, batteries on the dialer’s end would cause a flap on the switchboard operator’s end (also battery-powered) to open in a silent cue. Once the caller verbalized who they wanted to reach, the operator would manually connect a cord from the switch corresponding to the dialer to the switch corresponding to who they wanted to call. When the power source changed from batteries to electrical currents, the flaps became lights, and eventually the whole system would be run by electricity. But while the endpoint connections modernized relatively rapidly, the manual plug-in cord system took many more decades to evolve. Switchboard operators were a necessity – but for how long?
Economist Elizabeth Faulkner Baker wrote in 1964, “It is possible that the decline in the relative importance of telephone operators may be nearing an end.” There were surely some who scoffed at the time, but digital and computer technology have since rendered Baker’s predictions accurate. With no further need for manual connections, switchboard operators did eventually have to phone it in.
Telephony (25:08) - From a series that explores just exactly where science went awry and led to new discoveries and inventions, this video explores the beginnings of the telephone and how it, and the many components and processes it necessitated, evolved over the years.
Number Please: Telephone Switchboard (02:22) - This silent 1920 documentary produced by the Ford Motor Company features the telephone switchboard and the telephone operators that handled an ever-growing and complicated process.
Telephone and Telegraph Communication (02:16) - This silent 1919 documentary produced by the Ford Motor Company shows the switchboard operators and manual laborers involved in telephone and telegraph communications.
Manual switchboards (02:16) - In this segment of Telephony: Quirky Science, learn how manual switchboard operators connected one person's line to another's phone. When the system became unwieldy as use grew, Almon Strowger created an automatic switchboard, paving the way for today's direct dial service.
Lamplighters
Our third and final long-lost occupation also stemmed from societal needs before electricity – the lighting of streets after dark. Before 1820 (for the U.S., at least), it was largely candles or oil lamps that lit the streets for occupants. But while the oil lamps were certainly considered a step above the candle, its flame was still so weak that only the areas nearest the lamp provided any illumination. In fact, this article describes how, in 1830, a New York watchman was killed “when he collided blindly with a post” while running towards a disturbance.
So when London unveiled brighter gas-fueled lamps in 1807, those running dark communities were paying close attention. The development of gas lamps so greatly improved illumination that by the mid-1800s, gas lighting was implemented in multiple communities across the United States. But as the lighting systems grew, so did municipal and regional responsibilities to keep those gas lamps lit. With the standardization of street lighting came a whole new (or, at least, more stable) occupation: the lamp attendants, or lamplighters, who were needed to keep the flame alive.
Fast-forward to today, and electricity (and all things digital) have certainly lessened the need for lamplighters. And while there are still some lamplighters out there used in historical locales, the occupation is otherwise pretty much extinguished.
Street Lamps: Absolutist Rule (01:16) - In 1667, Louis IVX introduced street lighting by royal decree. In this segment from Bright Lights, Big City, learn how oil lamps were fixed in the street and lighting came under the control of street police.
Gas Lamps and Popular Culture (01:01) - By 1823, in London, there were 40,000 gas lamps employing, by the 1840s, nearly 400 lamplighters. In this segment from Bright Lights, Big City, learn how the cast iron gas lamp became part of the furniture of the street.
Before the Light Bulb: Gas Lighting & Arc Lights (02:11) - When inventors began working on electric light, it drastically changed daily life for ordinary people. In this segment of The Age of Invention: Shock and Awe—The Story of Electricity, discover the evolution of 19th century indoor and outdoor lighting.
Light (55:18) - In this video about pioneers of light across history, hear about the light bulb Edison didn’t actually invent, how an 18th-century skipper discovered a source of illumination by putting a kid inside a whale’s head, and how a French scientist accidentally discovered how to create neon light.
What present-day occupations do you foresee losing in the future? Are there positions hanging on by a thread that you believe will be obsolete a few generations from now? Please share your thoughts in the comments!
Traci Avet is a librarian who has worked in libraries for over twenty years, and has had the pleasure of experiencing vast card catalogs and due-date card stamping.