JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Here’s a wonderful book that I found while looking for another “Hazen” (the 1930’s servo-mechanism guy), one of a series of books that have appeared over the centuries that I’ve seen here and there, outlining and illustrating (usually for the young reader) some of the popular and essential jobs of the era.
- Source: the Hathi Trust, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112112080590&view=1up&seq=5
The professions listed here in 1846 were stock-in-trade so to speak, jobs essential to the functioning of society, producing the necessaries that couldn’t already be made at home. Currently most of these professions are mostly or entirely gone, or basically gone, or reduced to niche sub-markets or some such. For example, you don’t see too much interest in or need anymore for the tanner, boot-maker, soap-boiler, copperplate printer, lithographer, wheelwright, cooper, nailer, comb-maker, and the like. Many of the other jobs still exist, though now subsumed in an industrial-sized entity like a supermarket or mall. And some of these jobs took a beating because of mass-influencers like radio, television, and of course the interwebtube, where one person (or small group) can now function in place of the local/individual provider, like, for example, the preacher. There are still churches in numbers in glorioso, though I’m sure some significant number of those in the religion industry have been stacked into the dark corner by televised/monitorized electric talking religico-heads, who exist online or on the television for tens of millions of people and who have taken the place of Preacher Joe down the street.
Some of the jobs have just changed names though they provide a similar service, like the wheelwright and the tire-change shop.
Professions come and go, of course, and it would be a fun exercise to look around you and try to determine the approaching antiquarian value (the AAV) of needs serviced by particular professions that are around you, right now. One of my stores, for example, occupied the space of what in the 1920s was a greeting card maker, which was replaced by a radio repairman and electronic tube shop. If only among the professions that will soon be unnecessary one could only hope that in the near future we didn’t need lawyers or doctors. Or dentists.
So, the list of professions from the Hazen book: