Modern Antique Occupations

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1233

Earlier in this blog I looked at the diminishing importances in antiquarian times--some occupations, formerly integral and important, have now become sufficient, occasionally a luxury to be afforded by folks who can pay for reigniting past importance.  This earlier example was found in William Pyne's great-ish 1845 work, Picturesque groups for the embellishment of landscape..-- it was a work of clip art for its day, really, showing, detailing, the attitudes and occupations of working people.  It was a book filled with the people who might ordinarily have gone missing from the work of the artists needing their images displayed in their brains by someone else's labor; a book filled with figures to plug-up the blank spaces, round out that unkind bits that called out for a human touch. This new example's lists (below) are interesting in this same way, though the jobs listed are less general and more "professional", or technical, than the Pyne work--fishmongers and rat-catchers are not listed here. 

The work is that of Edward Hazen who in 1837 described 68 specialized jobs in his Panorama of Professions and Trade. Unlike many other occupations from a less specialized list, nearly all of these jobs still exist, though many have been lowered to deep depths of obscurity (say, for "lithographer"), while others are changing whole-cloth but still quite popular (like my own profession as "bookseller".  A bookseller from 1837 could see that some small percentage of the booksellers he met were indeed selling books in a way he recognized--but then there's that knotty majority who even though were brothers-in-trade would seem I think to be almost entirely foreign to his antiquarian eyes.)

Of all the professions listed below, only five, I think, are almost entirely removed from the public picture--jobs held by people now but by people who would be difficult to find. The short list--type founder, turner, wheelwright and stereotyper.  As I said, there are people who practice these positions, but their services are more luxuries than necessities, now.  Whereas my earlier post on the Pyne occupations was listed as a "Domesday tour" of disappeared professions, it it remarkable to see how many of the Hazen jobs continue to survive. 

Comments

[Ray Girvan]

There's currently a UK TV programme recreating an Edwardian farm that mentioned there's only one master cooper left in England (trade destroyed by metal barrels). My family had a line of saddlers that died out in the 1960s or so, though one of brothers-in-law still works as a thatcher.

[Ptak]

Well, not everyone can say that their brother is a "thatcher" and not a former PM. Good on him!