Sunday, September 8, 2013

11 Jobs From 1850 That Are Totally Extinct

Once stable, commonplace jobs that have vanished.

The recent recession may have turned the job market on its head, but larger economic factors have drastically changed the U.S. market over the last century. The Industrial Revolution has all but eliminated once stable, middle-class jobs that were commonplace for your great-grandparents living in rural farmlands.

To find out what types of jobs were around before the Industrial Revolution, we combed through the occupational classification list from 1850, the first year the government collected data on what Americans do for work, provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We then compared it to a part of today's Census called the Standard Occupational Classifications, which identifies 31,000 active occupations in America.

Below are jobs from the past that are no longer recognized by the BLS:

Multiplex