APM Studios
As times change, so do jobs, and careers that once were common can go extinct! Join Joy and co-host Amirah as they head to the world famous “This Used to be a Career Fair.” There, you’ll hear about knocker uppers, switchboard operators, ornamental hermits and other unique jobs that have gone away as technology and culture have changed. Plus, listeners share their ideas for new jobs that will exist in the future, and we play a brand new game of First Things First!
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[OPENING DOOR] AMEERA: Good morning, Joy. Joy? Hello? Anybody home? Where is she? She told me to pick her up this morning at 8:15 sharp. Joy.
JOY DOLO: [SNORING] One in the middle, two in the middle. Watch out. That's what you get from messing with these toads, you whippersnapper.
AMEERA: Joy, wake up. It's 8:18.
JOY DOLO: 8:18? We were supposed to leave three minutes ago. Oh no, I overslept.
AMEERA: Did you forget to set your alarm?
JOY DOLO: An alarm? No way. Not on this most special day. Alarms are too modern. I hired a knocker upper.
AMEERA: A knocker whatter?
JOY DOLO: You know, a knocker upper. Long ago, before most people had alarm clocks, you could hire someone to come to your window and knock on it with a long stick to wake you up. That person was called a knocker upper. But my knocker upper must have overslept.
AMEERA: But why didn't you just set your alarm clock?
JOY DOLO: Oh, silly, silly. Ameera, on this most auspicious day, I could never. Anyway, I'm up.
[BRUSHING TEETH]
And I'm ready.
AMEERA: Wait, did you sleep in your khakis and button down shirt?
JOY: Of course. I wanted to be ready the second I woke up. It's a big occasion.
AMEERA: What is the occasion anyway?
[CAR HOOTING]
JOY: Our ride's here. I'll tell you on the way. Come on.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You're listening to Forever Ago from APM Studios. I'm your host, Joy Dolo. And I'm here today with my co-host, Ameera from Memphis, Tennessee.
AMEERA: Hi.
JOY DOLO: Hello. And today's episode is all about jobs that people used to do but don't anymore. Ameera, what are some jobs you might like to try when you get older?
AMEERA: One job that I would want to try when I get older is like a pediatrician or a nurse.
JOY DOLO: Oh, that's nice. You like to help people?
AMEERA: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: Yeah. And maybe like kids too, hey.
AMEERA: Yeah, definitely kids.
JOY DOLO: Yeah. So we know you'd be really good as a pediatrician. Are there certain qualities that you have that you think would make that a really good job for you?
AMEERA: Yeah, I think like I'm talkative, I guess, so I can keep like them company, I guess, if they're like nervous. And I can also-- I'm also helpful.
JOY DOLO: That sounds like that'd be a great job for you. OK, speaking of jobs, we've got places to go so let's kick it. Wow, the traffic is bad today. I haven't seen a jam this bad since I tried to make my own orange marmalade. It's so thick, so gloopy, so orange. Anywho, I'm sure we'll make it in time. Don't worry.
AMEERA: Joy, so will you tell me where we're going now?
JOY DOLO: Today is the world famous this used to be a career fair. Ameera, do you know what a career fair is? Like, have you ever had a career day at your school?
AMEERA: Yeah, I had one at my old school in elementary school, and I think I was a teacher.
JOY DOLO: Oh, very cool. That's actually pretty close to the pediatrician job you want, like a talkative person to make people feel better. That's cool.
AMEERA: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: Well, this is sort of like that except none of these jobs exist anymore. It's a great way to learn about how technology and culture have changed over time.
AMEERA: And a terrible way to find a job.
JOY DOLO: True. Although I do have an opening for a knocker upper since someone-- Elizabeth-- couldn't seem to wake me up on time. So you never know.
[CAR SCREECHING]
We're here. Uh, look, I bet that guy wants to be a court jester. Those were people hired to entertain royalty way back in medieval times.
[LAUGHTER]
AMEERA: He sure seems entertaining. And is that person trying to get a job as a barber or a surgeon?
JOY DOLO: Both. Today we know those are two jobs that require very different skill sets, but in the 1400s and 1500s, they were done by the same person. Whether you needed your mustache trimmed or your tooth pulled, your local barber/surgeon was the one to call.
AMEERA: Yikes, that barber surgeon looks way too sleepy to be handling those sharp blades.
JOY DOLO: Yikes is right. Maybe their knocker upper overslept too.
AMEERA: What does a knocker upper actually do?
JOY DOLO: Are you looking for a new gig?
AMEERA: Joy, I'm 12 years old, but I'm a Forever Ago fan so naturally I'm curious about history.
JOY DOLO: Right, of course, of course. Well, it all starts in England in the 1800s during the Industrial Revolution.
(SINGING) Industrial Revolution.
AMEERA: That's when things started being made in factories with the help of machines instead of by hand at home.
JOY DOLO: Right, big machines were used in factories but people didn't have electricity yet in their homes. It was long before radios or TVs, but reading was pretty popular. Before the Industrial Revolution, people set their own work hours.
AMEERA: Most people worked during the day, whenever the sun was up, instead of sticking to a set number of hours each day.
JOY DOLO: But as more and more factories opened, more bosses started setting specific hours for work. And the bosses wanted their workers to show up right on time. If a worker was late, they could be punished or even lose their job. But alarm clocks weren't common back then, and most workers couldn't afford watches. Enter the knocker upper.
AMEERA: So these knocker uppers would just go from house to house with a long stick, tapping on people's bedroom windows to wake them up?
JOY DOLO: Yep. Although there are records of at least one knocker upper, Mary Smith, who used a small pipe called a peashooter to blow many projectiles up to the windows.
AMEERA: Like 19th century spitballs? Nice. Maybe this is the job for me. Hey, check out that table.
JOY DOLO: Ooh, looks like they're hiring for a milkman. They used to deliver milk to houses every morning. Now we just go to stores to buy it. Uh, free milk samples. Don't mind if I do. [DRINKING] Ah, refreshing. Now, let's keep moving. We've got a lot more jobs that don't exist anymore to see and I haven't handed out a single resume.
AMEERA: Hey, that person looks busy.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, she's got on a giant pair of headphones and she's sitting in front of a wall with a ton of wires coming out of it. She must be pretty important.
[PHONE RINGING]
MARY MALLOY: Operator, how may I direct your call? One moment, please, while I connect you.
[PHONE RINGING]
Operator, how may I direct your call? One moment, please. Hello, there.
AMEERA: Hi. What are you doing?
MARY MALLOY: Well, I'm a switchboard operator, see. Name's Mary Malloy. And when it comes to phones, I'm the real McCoy.
JOY DOLO: Oh, I've heard of switchboard operators. They worked for telephone companies more than 100 years ago in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Back then phones were a lot different than they are now. They looked more like a microphone on a little stand. You'd talk into that and then there was a cup like thing with a cord attached to it. You'd put that to your ear to hear with.
MARY MALLOY: Yep. And back then phones only did one thing, call people. But you couldn't just dial the number yourself.
AMEERA: Well, if you couldn't dial a phone number, how would you call someone?
MARY MALLOY: That's where I come in, see. Say someone calls into this used to be a career fair day looking for a certain so-and-so.
[PHONE RINGING]
Well, what do you know? Operator, how may I direct your call? They're looking for the town crier. Ain't that the fella who used to shout the news in the town square before they invented newspapers?
JOY DOLO: Sounds right to me.
MARY MALLOY: Please hold, I'll connect you. So here's my switchboard, see. It's got a socket for every phone in town. When someone wants to make a call, they pick up their phone and it comes straight to me through this wire. They tell me who they want to talk to and then I plug that wire into the socket of the person they mentioned. Then that person's phone starts ringing.
[PHONE RINGING]
When they pick up, I tell them they have a call and transfer the caller over the line. Nifty, right?
AMEERA: So you get to spend all day on your phone and you barely have to talk to anyone? Sounds like a pretty great gig to me.
MARY MALLOY: It's the bee's knees, kid.
JOY DOLO: Take a look at that switchboard, so many sockets. Hey, there's my knocker upper's line. Let me give her a call. She's got some explaining to do.
MARY MALLOY: Perfect. Just pick up this phone and I'll put you through to her. Hello, Elizabeth, knocker upper? Call for you from Joy Dolo. Connecting now.
JOY DOLO: Good morning, my foot. You didn't wake me up. Self-care day? Now, I know they didn't have those back then. Hey, she hung up on me.
AMEERA: So what happened to switchboards? Why doesn't this job exist anymore?
JOY DOLO: Well, phone companies realized that it might be easier and cheaper to use machines to connect people. So in the late 1920s, they invented phone numbers. It took decades for phone numbers to replace all the operators, though.
MARY MALLOY: Talk about a drag. Not long after those wet blankets in the head office invented phone numbers, they told all us saps to get a wiggle on.
AMEERA: Ah, translation.
MARY MALLOY: You know, hit the bricks, scram? Make like a tree?
AMEERA: Oh, they told the switchboard operators to leave?
MARY MALLOY: Now you're on the trolley. So I was out of a job.
JOY DOLO: Switchboard operators used to be one of the most common jobs for women in the country. In 1920, about one in every 50 working women in the United States worked as a switchboard operator.
AMEERA: Well, thanks for talking to us, Mary. Good luck at the fair.
MARY: Toodle-oo.
JOY DOLO: Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. Ameera, pick up the phone.
AMEERA: Joy, that's not a phone. That's a banana. And you're making those ringing sounds.
JOY DOLO: Come on, pick it up.
AMEERA: Hello?
JOY DOLO: Oh, Ameera, hi. I'm so glad I caught you. It's time to play.
(SINGING) First things first.
This is the game where we take three things from history and try to put them in order of which came first, second, and most recent in time. Today, we're going to look at three rights won by US workers, the five day workweek, which means you work five days and rest for two, a guaranteed minimum wage, which says bosses can't pay people less than a certain amount of money per hour, and the right to go on strike. Do you know what it means to go on strike?
AMEERA: To go on strike means to stop working so that way you can get better conditions from the manager or the store owner.
JOY DOLO: Absolutely. Yeah, that's right on, right on. OK, great. So out of all of these, which do you think came first, which came second, and which came most recently in history?
AMEERA: I feel like the right to go on strike comes first because I've heard a lot of things about strikes from the 1800s and 1900s.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, yeah.
AMEERA: And then I feel like the guaranteed minimum wage came next because even though people were paid very little, like hundred years ago, they still had like a rate that you had to pay them, I think.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, yeah.
AMEERA: And then I think the five day workweek came most recently because we're reading in class right now about how workers in the 1920s had to work like every single day, so I think that that came more recently.
JOY DOLO: OK. Those are some really solid guesses. So first we have the strike and then we have the minimum wage and then the five day workweek?
AMEERA: Yes.
JOY DOLO: All right, let's lock that in. [BEATBOXING] That was the treasure chest I put it in. We'll hear the answers at the end of the episode right after the credits.
AMEERA: So stick around.
JOY DOLO: We're working on an episode all about how whales communicate. And we want to know if you could communicate with any type of animal, which would you want to talk with and why? Ameera, what do you think?
AMEERA: I think that I would want to talk to cats because I have two cats and I want to know if they really love me or not or if they're just cuddling with me for warmth.
JOY DOLO: That is the question we would all need to know. If you became a cat whisperer, I think you would have a job for a lifetime.
AMEERA: Yeah. And I could tell other people what their cats are feeling too.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, yeah. OK, listeners, record yourself explaining what kind of animal you'd like to be able to communicate with and send it to us at foreverago.org/contact. And while you're there, you can send us episode ideas, questions and drawings, like maybe a picture of Elizabeth, the knocker upper knocking on my window when she was supposed to instead of sleeping in her bed.
AMEERA: So keep listening.
JOY DOLO: Brains On Universe is a family of podcasts for kids and their adults. Since you're a fan of Forever Ago, we know you'll love the other shows in our universe. Come on, let's explore.
FAN: Forever Ago, I'm their biggest fan. I also love Smash Boom Best, a fan debate podcast for kids and families. Listen, I will play you Smash Boom Best, you will love.
NARRATOR: To refresh your memory, the Ugly Duckling goes like this. A bunch of duck eggs hatch and the cute little ducklings go quack, quack, quack. Mother duck is super happy with her eggs when crack, the last one explodes and out comes this--
FAN: Zorb, where did the signal go? Must find Smash Boom Best now.
JOY DOLO: Listen to Smash Boom Best wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Forever Ago. I'm Joy.
AMEERA: And I'm Ameera.
JOY DOLO: And we're at this used to be a career fair, learning about jobs that no longer exist. It's the job fair with the highest potential for cool historical facts.
AMEERA: And the lowest potential for finding an actual career. So far we've learned about knocker uppers, which were people who went around to wake people up for work before alarm clocks were common.
JOY DOLO: If they woke up in time themselves, Elizabeth.
AMEERA: We also learned about switchboard operators who would connect phone calls before we could dial them ourselves.
JOY DOLO: Anyway, moving on to the next table.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Greetings, are you allergic to goats hair?
JOY DOLO: Er, excuse me?
CHARLES HAMILTON: I said, are you allergic to goat's hair?
AMEERA: I don't think so.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Splendid. There are just a few other requirements for the position that we should review.
AMEERA: What position?
CHARLES HAMILTON: My garden hermit.
JOY DOLO: A garden hermit?
CHARLES HAMILTON: Oh, dear me, where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. I am the honorable Charles Hamilton. I'm very rich and very British and an actual real historical person.
JOY DOLO: Judging by your white powdered wig, knee length silk coat and fancy vest, I'm going to guess you're from the 1700s?
CHARLES HAMILTON: Huh, how would you future folk put it? Hammered it. No, wait, nailed it. You are correct.
AMEERA: OK. Back in the 1700s, people got around on foot and by horse drawn carriages.
JOY DOLO: There wasn't TV or radio or computers or even electric lights yet, just books and theater and powdered wig wearing for fun.
CHARLES HAMILTON: And my fancy, fancy garden. We rich aristocrats loved our fancy gardens. These gardens were huge. More like a park, really, full of trees, flowers, caves, miniature mountains, bushes trimmed to resemble animals, tiny zoos, fossils. Just lovely. I need just one finishing touch for mine, a garden hermit.
AMEERA: Like a hermit crab?
CHARLES HAMILTON: Why would I ask you about your goat hair allergies if I was looking for a crustacean? [LAUGHS] Come now, so silly.
JOY DOLO: Then what's a hermit?
CHARLES HAMILTON: Why, a silent and solitary man to live in a little house in my garden.
JOY DOLO: Maybe you could just get a garden gnome, you know, one of those stone statues with a cute, pointy hats.
CHARLES HAMILTON: An absurd notion, indeed.
AMEERA: OK, I've actually heard of hermits. They were around a long, long time ago. Like 500 years before even your time, Mr Hamilton.
JOY DOLO: Oh yeah. They were people who dropped out from regular life to be alone so they could focus on spirituality and religion. They often had long hair because they didn't care how they looked. They just focused on matters of the mind and the soul.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Yes, indeed. But for my garden I don't need you to be an actual hermit. I'd just like you to pretend to be one for a while, see.
JOY DOLO: Pretending? Like acting? I love acting.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Yes, yes. You'd be like a living decoration for the garden. Doesn't that sound fun? In my day, we saw the hermit as a reminder of a simpler, more pure time, so which people like me would pay someone to act like a hermit so we can, as you might say, enjoy the vibes.
JOY DOLO: OK, I might be able to get into this character.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Splendid. Here are the requirements from an actual position that paid an actual human to do in the actual 1700s. You will live in my garden, Hermitage, for seven years.
JOY DOLO: Seven years? Well, that's a long time.
CHARLES HAMILTON: During that time, you shall not cut your hair, your beard or your nails. You shall not leave the garden. You shall not talk to the servant who brings you your meals.
JOY DOLO: I do hate haircuts and I love meals.
CHARLES HAMILTON: In addition to meals, we shall provide you with a goat hair robe for your clothing, a mat and a pillow for sleeping, a Bible, a pair of glasses with which to read said Bible, water, an hourglass. And if you make it seven years, you get paid $900. In future folk money, that would be about $36,000 a year. The numbers you people deal with these days is so many zeros. Really unbecoming of a number to have that many zeros.
JOY DOLO: Well, I do like money, but I also love chatting and going places and literally doing anything else besides hanging out in a shed in your garden for seven years.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Fair, fair. My last hermit only lasted three weeks before he ran away to a pub.
AMEERA: Wait, wait, wait. I'm still stuck on the fact that this is an actual job people did?
CHARLES HAMILTON: Well, the fad only lasted about 100 years then we moved on to other distractions like sending people all over the world to find rare orchid plants.
JOY DOLO: We've got a Forever Ago episode all about that. But, seriously, you might want to consider a ceramic garden gnome. You don't have to worry about them running away, you don't have to feed them and they're really cute.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Hm, I may consider that as a last resort. In the meantime, would you like to try on this goat hair robe?
JOY DOLO: Sure. Oh wow, it's surprisingly comfy.
AMEERA: Really?
JOY DOLO: No, it's the worst thing ever. Let's get out of here. Bye Charles.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Now, what is it you future folks say when you bid adieu to one another? See you later, excavator? Aviator. No, no, fumigator? Oh my goodness, it's right on the tip of the tongue. Paper platter, no. Sausage and tater, no.
JOY DOLO: What a fun day at the No Longer a Career Fair, but, boy, are my feet tired from all that walking.
AMEERA: At least we got a lot of free swag from that booth of things people no longer use. What do you do with an eight track tape anyway?
JOY DOLO: Well, they make great coasters. It was eye opening to learn how as new technology like alarm clocks was introduced, jobs like knocker uppers went away.
AMEERA: But lots of new jobs have been invented since then too.
JOY DOLO: And as technology and culture continue to change, so will jobs. We asked you to tell us what you think the jobs of the future will be, and here's what you said.
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
What I think a job in the future would be a cloud maker. They would get requests from people and then they would make clouds and put them into the sky.
My name is Elis from Pasadena, California. And a job that I think would exist in the future is a cyborg technician. They help repair cyborgs.
My name is Vera. And the job of the future that I thought of would be a food machine person.
Hi. I'm Elliott. And I'm from Andover, Vermont. And I think a job of the future will be mobile homes in space. So someone will come to your house and they'll say, what do you want me to build? And you'll say, I want it to look like this and I want it to be able to do this, and I want it to turn into a spaceship in space. But when we land on the ground, I want it to be a home.
JOY DOLO: Thanks to Caroline, Elis, Vera, and for Elliott sending in those great ideas. This episode was written by--
MOLLY BLOOM: Molly Bloom.
NICO GONZALEZ WHISTLER: Nico Gonzalez Whistler.
JOY DOLO: --and--
JESS MILLER: Jess Miller.
JOY DOLO: It was produced by--
RUBY GUTHRIE: Ruby Guthrie.
JOY DOLO: Our editors are--
SANDEN TOTTEN: Sanden Totten.
JOY DOLO: And--
SHAHLA FARZAN: Shahla Farzan.
JOY DOLO: Fact checking by--
RUBY GUTHRIE: Ruby Guthrie.
JOY DOLO: Engineering help from Chris Isaac and Josh Savageau. With sound design by--
RACHAEL BRIESE: Rachel Briese.
JOY DOLO: Original theme music by--
MARC SANCHEZ: Marc Sanchez.
JOY DOLO: We had additional production help from the rest of the Brains On Universe team.
ROSIE DUPONT: Rosie DuPont.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Anna Goldfield.
LAUREN HUMPERT: Lauren Humpert.
JOSHUA RAY: Joshua Ray.
MARC SANCHEZ: Marc Sanchez.
SHARLET TREVER: Sharlet Trever.
ANNA WEGGEL: Anna Weggel.
JOY DOLO: And--
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Aron Woldeslassie.
JOY DOLO: Beth Perlman is our executive producer and the executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Andrew Towfiq.
AMEERA: And if you want access to ad-free episodes and special bonus content, subscribe to our Smarty Pass.
JOY DOLO: OK, Ameera, are you ready to hear the answers for First Things First?
AMEERA: Yes, definitely.
JOY DOLO: OK, so just as a reminder, what you said was strikes were first and the minimum wage was second, and the five day workweek was last, right?
AMEERA: Yes.
JOY DOLO: All right, drum roll, please. Oh my gosh. You got it right.
AMEERA: What?
JOY DOLO: You did it, Ameera. I'm so proud of you.
AMEERA: I can't believe that. I never get that right.
JOY DOLO: You never get it right. Well, this time you did. All right, so first up was the right to go on strike, 1935. And so a strike is when workers stop working until they're treated better by their bosses. And workers have gone on strike for centuries but the right to strike in the US became officially a protection in 1935.
And this is when the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was passed. It also outlines rules and guidelines for strikes. That's neat. And then the next two was the five day workweek and guaranteed minimum wage. Both of those were from 1938.
So this was a tricky one. The five day workweek and a guaranteed minimum wage were both part of a law called the Fair Labor Standards Act, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938. And as we said before, the five day workweek means you work five days and get two days off for rest. And in 1938, President Franklin D Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which set the standard workweek at 44 hours.
By 1940, it was down to 40 hours. And this meant that most Americans worked eight hours, five days per week. Before that it was common for American workers to work 60 or more hours every week. If they worked five days, that would be 12 hours each day. 12 hours each day? That's nuts. When do they sleep? When do they eat? When do they-- when do they go to the mall?
AMEERA: I could never work that much.
JOY DOLO: I know. How many hours a day do you think you'd want to work? If you could choose.
AMEERA: Probably six or seven. That's how much I go to school now, so it wouldn't be as bad.
JOY DOLO: That's a good point. If you go to school for six or seven hours, that should be like the working hour time. I think I'd like to work for two hours a day because I think I could get a lot done in two hours. Like when I have my coffee buzz in the morning, I just-- I get so much done. And then right around noon I start to get sleepy and then I have my snack.
And then I-- and then I want to take a nap. Anywho, the first guaranteed minimum wage was set at $0.25 an hour. And today the federal minimum wage is $7.25. But many states have a higher minimum wage, $7.25 is what some people make hourly.
AMEERA: Wow.
JOY DOLO: Is that surprising to you?
AMEERA: Yeah, that's surprising. Well, it's really surprising that it grew like $7 in not even 100 years.
JOY DOLO: Isn't that nuts? And then also we're still-- we've been working 40 hours a week since 1940 and we're in 2024.
AMEERA: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: Do you think that needs to change or do you think it's OK?
AMEERA: I feel like some people should definitely work less because that doesn't even count that some people work two jobs.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, yeah, you're right. If you had to have two full time jobs, like, you'd be working 80 hours a week and you wouldn't have time for your friends or your family or anything else that kind of makes life awesome.
AMEERA: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: Join us next week for a new episode all about the history of rap music.
AMEERA: Thanks for listening.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JOY DOLO: [SNORING] One in the middle, two in the middle. Watch out. That's what you get from messing with these toads, you whippersnapper.
AMEERA: Joy, wake up. It's 8:18.
JOY DOLO: 8:18? We were supposed to leave three minutes ago. Oh no, I overslept.
AMEERA: Did you forget to set your alarm?
JOY DOLO: An alarm? No way. Not on this most special day. Alarms are too modern. I hired a knocker upper.
AMEERA: A knocker whatter?
JOY DOLO: You know, a knocker upper. Long ago, before most people had alarm clocks, you could hire someone to come to your window and knock on it with a long stick to wake you up. That person was called a knocker upper. But my knocker upper must have overslept.
AMEERA: But why didn't you just set your alarm clock?
JOY DOLO: Oh, silly, silly. Ameera, on this most auspicious day, I could never. Anyway, I'm up.
[BRUSHING TEETH]
And I'm ready.
AMEERA: Wait, did you sleep in your khakis and button down shirt?
JOY: Of course. I wanted to be ready the second I woke up. It's a big occasion.
AMEERA: What is the occasion anyway?
[CAR HOOTING]
JOY: Our ride's here. I'll tell you on the way. Come on.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You're listening to Forever Ago from APM Studios. I'm your host, Joy Dolo. And I'm here today with my co-host, Ameera from Memphis, Tennessee.
AMEERA: Hi.
JOY DOLO: Hello. And today's episode is all about jobs that people used to do but don't anymore. Ameera, what are some jobs you might like to try when you get older?
AMEERA: One job that I would want to try when I get older is like a pediatrician or a nurse.
JOY DOLO: Oh, that's nice. You like to help people?
AMEERA: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: Yeah. And maybe like kids too, hey.
AMEERA: Yeah, definitely kids.
JOY DOLO: Yeah. So we know you'd be really good as a pediatrician. Are there certain qualities that you have that you think would make that a really good job for you?
AMEERA: Yeah, I think like I'm talkative, I guess, so I can keep like them company, I guess, if they're like nervous. And I can also-- I'm also helpful.
JOY DOLO: That sounds like that'd be a great job for you. OK, speaking of jobs, we've got places to go so let's kick it. Wow, the traffic is bad today. I haven't seen a jam this bad since I tried to make my own orange marmalade. It's so thick, so gloopy, so orange. Anywho, I'm sure we'll make it in time. Don't worry.
AMEERA: Joy, so will you tell me where we're going now?
JOY DOLO: Today is the world famous this used to be a career fair. Ameera, do you know what a career fair is? Like, have you ever had a career day at your school?
AMEERA: Yeah, I had one at my old school in elementary school, and I think I was a teacher.
JOY DOLO: Oh, very cool. That's actually pretty close to the pediatrician job you want, like a talkative person to make people feel better. That's cool.
AMEERA: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: Well, this is sort of like that except none of these jobs exist anymore. It's a great way to learn about how technology and culture have changed over time.
AMEERA: And a terrible way to find a job.
JOY DOLO: True. Although I do have an opening for a knocker upper since someone-- Elizabeth-- couldn't seem to wake me up on time. So you never know.
[CAR SCREECHING]
We're here. Uh, look, I bet that guy wants to be a court jester. Those were people hired to entertain royalty way back in medieval times.
[LAUGHTER]
AMEERA: He sure seems entertaining. And is that person trying to get a job as a barber or a surgeon?
JOY DOLO: Both. Today we know those are two jobs that require very different skill sets, but in the 1400s and 1500s, they were done by the same person. Whether you needed your mustache trimmed or your tooth pulled, your local barber/surgeon was the one to call.
AMEERA: Yikes, that barber surgeon looks way too sleepy to be handling those sharp blades.
JOY DOLO: Yikes is right. Maybe their knocker upper overslept too.
AMEERA: What does a knocker upper actually do?
JOY DOLO: Are you looking for a new gig?
AMEERA: Joy, I'm 12 years old, but I'm a Forever Ago fan so naturally I'm curious about history.
JOY DOLO: Right, of course, of course. Well, it all starts in England in the 1800s during the Industrial Revolution.
(SINGING) Industrial Revolution.
AMEERA: That's when things started being made in factories with the help of machines instead of by hand at home.
JOY DOLO: Right, big machines were used in factories but people didn't have electricity yet in their homes. It was long before radios or TVs, but reading was pretty popular. Before the Industrial Revolution, people set their own work hours.
AMEERA: Most people worked during the day, whenever the sun was up, instead of sticking to a set number of hours each day.
JOY DOLO: But as more and more factories opened, more bosses started setting specific hours for work. And the bosses wanted their workers to show up right on time. If a worker was late, they could be punished or even lose their job. But alarm clocks weren't common back then, and most workers couldn't afford watches. Enter the knocker upper.
AMEERA: So these knocker uppers would just go from house to house with a long stick, tapping on people's bedroom windows to wake them up?
JOY DOLO: Yep. Although there are records of at least one knocker upper, Mary Smith, who used a small pipe called a peashooter to blow many projectiles up to the windows.
AMEERA: Like 19th century spitballs? Nice. Maybe this is the job for me. Hey, check out that table.
JOY DOLO: Ooh, looks like they're hiring for a milkman. They used to deliver milk to houses every morning. Now we just go to stores to buy it. Uh, free milk samples. Don't mind if I do. [DRINKING] Ah, refreshing. Now, let's keep moving. We've got a lot more jobs that don't exist anymore to see and I haven't handed out a single resume.
AMEERA: Hey, that person looks busy.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, she's got on a giant pair of headphones and she's sitting in front of a wall with a ton of wires coming out of it. She must be pretty important.
[PHONE RINGING]
MARY MALLOY: Operator, how may I direct your call? One moment, please, while I connect you.
[PHONE RINGING]
Operator, how may I direct your call? One moment, please. Hello, there.
AMEERA: Hi. What are you doing?
MARY MALLOY: Well, I'm a switchboard operator, see. Name's Mary Malloy. And when it comes to phones, I'm the real McCoy.
JOY DOLO: Oh, I've heard of switchboard operators. They worked for telephone companies more than 100 years ago in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Back then phones were a lot different than they are now. They looked more like a microphone on a little stand. You'd talk into that and then there was a cup like thing with a cord attached to it. You'd put that to your ear to hear with.
MARY MALLOY: Yep. And back then phones only did one thing, call people. But you couldn't just dial the number yourself.
AMEERA: Well, if you couldn't dial a phone number, how would you call someone?
MARY MALLOY: That's where I come in, see. Say someone calls into this used to be a career fair day looking for a certain so-and-so.
[PHONE RINGING]
Well, what do you know? Operator, how may I direct your call? They're looking for the town crier. Ain't that the fella who used to shout the news in the town square before they invented newspapers?
JOY DOLO: Sounds right to me.
MARY MALLOY: Please hold, I'll connect you. So here's my switchboard, see. It's got a socket for every phone in town. When someone wants to make a call, they pick up their phone and it comes straight to me through this wire. They tell me who they want to talk to and then I plug that wire into the socket of the person they mentioned. Then that person's phone starts ringing.
[PHONE RINGING]
When they pick up, I tell them they have a call and transfer the caller over the line. Nifty, right?
AMEERA: So you get to spend all day on your phone and you barely have to talk to anyone? Sounds like a pretty great gig to me.
MARY MALLOY: It's the bee's knees, kid.
JOY DOLO: Take a look at that switchboard, so many sockets. Hey, there's my knocker upper's line. Let me give her a call. She's got some explaining to do.
MARY MALLOY: Perfect. Just pick up this phone and I'll put you through to her. Hello, Elizabeth, knocker upper? Call for you from Joy Dolo. Connecting now.
JOY DOLO: Good morning, my foot. You didn't wake me up. Self-care day? Now, I know they didn't have those back then. Hey, she hung up on me.
AMEERA: So what happened to switchboards? Why doesn't this job exist anymore?
JOY DOLO: Well, phone companies realized that it might be easier and cheaper to use machines to connect people. So in the late 1920s, they invented phone numbers. It took decades for phone numbers to replace all the operators, though.
MARY MALLOY: Talk about a drag. Not long after those wet blankets in the head office invented phone numbers, they told all us saps to get a wiggle on.
AMEERA: Ah, translation.
MARY MALLOY: You know, hit the bricks, scram? Make like a tree?
AMEERA: Oh, they told the switchboard operators to leave?
MARY MALLOY: Now you're on the trolley. So I was out of a job.
JOY DOLO: Switchboard operators used to be one of the most common jobs for women in the country. In 1920, about one in every 50 working women in the United States worked as a switchboard operator.
AMEERA: Well, thanks for talking to us, Mary. Good luck at the fair.
MARY: Toodle-oo.
JOY DOLO: Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. Ameera, pick up the phone.
AMEERA: Joy, that's not a phone. That's a banana. And you're making those ringing sounds.
JOY DOLO: Come on, pick it up.
AMEERA: Hello?
JOY DOLO: Oh, Ameera, hi. I'm so glad I caught you. It's time to play.
(SINGING) First things first.
This is the game where we take three things from history and try to put them in order of which came first, second, and most recent in time. Today, we're going to look at three rights won by US workers, the five day workweek, which means you work five days and rest for two, a guaranteed minimum wage, which says bosses can't pay people less than a certain amount of money per hour, and the right to go on strike. Do you know what it means to go on strike?
AMEERA: To go on strike means to stop working so that way you can get better conditions from the manager or the store owner.
JOY DOLO: Absolutely. Yeah, that's right on, right on. OK, great. So out of all of these, which do you think came first, which came second, and which came most recently in history?
AMEERA: I feel like the right to go on strike comes first because I've heard a lot of things about strikes from the 1800s and 1900s.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, yeah.
AMEERA: And then I feel like the guaranteed minimum wage came next because even though people were paid very little, like hundred years ago, they still had like a rate that you had to pay them, I think.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, yeah.
AMEERA: And then I think the five day workweek came most recently because we're reading in class right now about how workers in the 1920s had to work like every single day, so I think that that came more recently.
JOY DOLO: OK. Those are some really solid guesses. So first we have the strike and then we have the minimum wage and then the five day workweek?
AMEERA: Yes.
JOY DOLO: All right, let's lock that in. [BEATBOXING] That was the treasure chest I put it in. We'll hear the answers at the end of the episode right after the credits.
AMEERA: So stick around.
JOY DOLO: We're working on an episode all about how whales communicate. And we want to know if you could communicate with any type of animal, which would you want to talk with and why? Ameera, what do you think?
AMEERA: I think that I would want to talk to cats because I have two cats and I want to know if they really love me or not or if they're just cuddling with me for warmth.
JOY DOLO: That is the question we would all need to know. If you became a cat whisperer, I think you would have a job for a lifetime.
AMEERA: Yeah. And I could tell other people what their cats are feeling too.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, yeah. OK, listeners, record yourself explaining what kind of animal you'd like to be able to communicate with and send it to us at foreverago.org/contact. And while you're there, you can send us episode ideas, questions and drawings, like maybe a picture of Elizabeth, the knocker upper knocking on my window when she was supposed to instead of sleeping in her bed.
AMEERA: So keep listening.
JOY DOLO: Brains On Universe is a family of podcasts for kids and their adults. Since you're a fan of Forever Ago, we know you'll love the other shows in our universe. Come on, let's explore.
FAN: Forever Ago, I'm their biggest fan. I also love Smash Boom Best, a fan debate podcast for kids and families. Listen, I will play you Smash Boom Best, you will love.
NARRATOR: To refresh your memory, the Ugly Duckling goes like this. A bunch of duck eggs hatch and the cute little ducklings go quack, quack, quack. Mother duck is super happy with her eggs when crack, the last one explodes and out comes this--
FAN: Zorb, where did the signal go? Must find Smash Boom Best now.
JOY DOLO: Listen to Smash Boom Best wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Forever Ago. I'm Joy.
AMEERA: And I'm Ameera.
JOY DOLO: And we're at this used to be a career fair, learning about jobs that no longer exist. It's the job fair with the highest potential for cool historical facts.
AMEERA: And the lowest potential for finding an actual career. So far we've learned about knocker uppers, which were people who went around to wake people up for work before alarm clocks were common.
JOY DOLO: If they woke up in time themselves, Elizabeth.
AMEERA: We also learned about switchboard operators who would connect phone calls before we could dial them ourselves.
JOY DOLO: Anyway, moving on to the next table.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Greetings, are you allergic to goats hair?
JOY DOLO: Er, excuse me?
CHARLES HAMILTON: I said, are you allergic to goat's hair?
AMEERA: I don't think so.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Splendid. There are just a few other requirements for the position that we should review.
AMEERA: What position?
CHARLES HAMILTON: My garden hermit.
JOY DOLO: A garden hermit?
CHARLES HAMILTON: Oh, dear me, where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. I am the honorable Charles Hamilton. I'm very rich and very British and an actual real historical person.
JOY DOLO: Judging by your white powdered wig, knee length silk coat and fancy vest, I'm going to guess you're from the 1700s?
CHARLES HAMILTON: Huh, how would you future folk put it? Hammered it. No, wait, nailed it. You are correct.
AMEERA: OK. Back in the 1700s, people got around on foot and by horse drawn carriages.
JOY DOLO: There wasn't TV or radio or computers or even electric lights yet, just books and theater and powdered wig wearing for fun.
CHARLES HAMILTON: And my fancy, fancy garden. We rich aristocrats loved our fancy gardens. These gardens were huge. More like a park, really, full of trees, flowers, caves, miniature mountains, bushes trimmed to resemble animals, tiny zoos, fossils. Just lovely. I need just one finishing touch for mine, a garden hermit.
AMEERA: Like a hermit crab?
CHARLES HAMILTON: Why would I ask you about your goat hair allergies if I was looking for a crustacean? [LAUGHS] Come now, so silly.
JOY DOLO: Then what's a hermit?
CHARLES HAMILTON: Why, a silent and solitary man to live in a little house in my garden.
JOY DOLO: Maybe you could just get a garden gnome, you know, one of those stone statues with a cute, pointy hats.
CHARLES HAMILTON: An absurd notion, indeed.
AMEERA: OK, I've actually heard of hermits. They were around a long, long time ago. Like 500 years before even your time, Mr Hamilton.
JOY DOLO: Oh yeah. They were people who dropped out from regular life to be alone so they could focus on spirituality and religion. They often had long hair because they didn't care how they looked. They just focused on matters of the mind and the soul.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Yes, indeed. But for my garden I don't need you to be an actual hermit. I'd just like you to pretend to be one for a while, see.
JOY DOLO: Pretending? Like acting? I love acting.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Yes, yes. You'd be like a living decoration for the garden. Doesn't that sound fun? In my day, we saw the hermit as a reminder of a simpler, more pure time, so which people like me would pay someone to act like a hermit so we can, as you might say, enjoy the vibes.
JOY DOLO: OK, I might be able to get into this character.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Splendid. Here are the requirements from an actual position that paid an actual human to do in the actual 1700s. You will live in my garden, Hermitage, for seven years.
JOY DOLO: Seven years? Well, that's a long time.
CHARLES HAMILTON: During that time, you shall not cut your hair, your beard or your nails. You shall not leave the garden. You shall not talk to the servant who brings you your meals.
JOY DOLO: I do hate haircuts and I love meals.
CHARLES HAMILTON: In addition to meals, we shall provide you with a goat hair robe for your clothing, a mat and a pillow for sleeping, a Bible, a pair of glasses with which to read said Bible, water, an hourglass. And if you make it seven years, you get paid $900. In future folk money, that would be about $36,000 a year. The numbers you people deal with these days is so many zeros. Really unbecoming of a number to have that many zeros.
JOY DOLO: Well, I do like money, but I also love chatting and going places and literally doing anything else besides hanging out in a shed in your garden for seven years.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Fair, fair. My last hermit only lasted three weeks before he ran away to a pub.
AMEERA: Wait, wait, wait. I'm still stuck on the fact that this is an actual job people did?
CHARLES HAMILTON: Well, the fad only lasted about 100 years then we moved on to other distractions like sending people all over the world to find rare orchid plants.
JOY DOLO: We've got a Forever Ago episode all about that. But, seriously, you might want to consider a ceramic garden gnome. You don't have to worry about them running away, you don't have to feed them and they're really cute.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Hm, I may consider that as a last resort. In the meantime, would you like to try on this goat hair robe?
JOY DOLO: Sure. Oh wow, it's surprisingly comfy.
AMEERA: Really?
JOY DOLO: No, it's the worst thing ever. Let's get out of here. Bye Charles.
CHARLES HAMILTON: Now, what is it you future folks say when you bid adieu to one another? See you later, excavator? Aviator. No, no, fumigator? Oh my goodness, it's right on the tip of the tongue. Paper platter, no. Sausage and tater, no.
JOY DOLO: What a fun day at the No Longer a Career Fair, but, boy, are my feet tired from all that walking.
AMEERA: At least we got a lot of free swag from that booth of things people no longer use. What do you do with an eight track tape anyway?
JOY DOLO: Well, they make great coasters. It was eye opening to learn how as new technology like alarm clocks was introduced, jobs like knocker uppers went away.
AMEERA: But lots of new jobs have been invented since then too.
JOY DOLO: And as technology and culture continue to change, so will jobs. We asked you to tell us what you think the jobs of the future will be, and here's what you said.
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
What I think a job in the future would be a cloud maker. They would get requests from people and then they would make clouds and put them into the sky.
My name is Elis from Pasadena, California. And a job that I think would exist in the future is a cyborg technician. They help repair cyborgs.
My name is Vera. And the job of the future that I thought of would be a food machine person.
Hi. I'm Elliott. And I'm from Andover, Vermont. And I think a job of the future will be mobile homes in space. So someone will come to your house and they'll say, what do you want me to build? And you'll say, I want it to look like this and I want it to be able to do this, and I want it to turn into a spaceship in space. But when we land on the ground, I want it to be a home.
JOY DOLO: Thanks to Caroline, Elis, Vera, and for Elliott sending in those great ideas. This episode was written by--
MOLLY BLOOM: Molly Bloom.
NICO GONZALEZ WHISTLER: Nico Gonzalez Whistler.
JOY DOLO: --and--
JESS MILLER: Jess Miller.
JOY DOLO: It was produced by--
RUBY GUTHRIE: Ruby Guthrie.
JOY DOLO: Our editors are--
SANDEN TOTTEN: Sanden Totten.
JOY DOLO: And--
SHAHLA FARZAN: Shahla Farzan.
JOY DOLO: Fact checking by--
RUBY GUTHRIE: Ruby Guthrie.
JOY DOLO: Engineering help from Chris Isaac and Josh Savageau. With sound design by--
RACHAEL BRIESE: Rachel Briese.
JOY DOLO: Original theme music by--
MARC SANCHEZ: Marc Sanchez.
JOY DOLO: We had additional production help from the rest of the Brains On Universe team.
ROSIE DUPONT: Rosie DuPont.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Anna Goldfield.
LAUREN HUMPERT: Lauren Humpert.
JOSHUA RAY: Joshua Ray.
MARC SANCHEZ: Marc Sanchez.
SHARLET TREVER: Sharlet Trever.
ANNA WEGGEL: Anna Weggel.
JOY DOLO: And--
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Aron Woldeslassie.
JOY DOLO: Beth Perlman is our executive producer and the executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Andrew Towfiq.
AMEERA: And if you want access to ad-free episodes and special bonus content, subscribe to our Smarty Pass.
JOY DOLO: OK, Ameera, are you ready to hear the answers for First Things First?
AMEERA: Yes, definitely.
JOY DOLO: OK, so just as a reminder, what you said was strikes were first and the minimum wage was second, and the five day workweek was last, right?
AMEERA: Yes.
JOY DOLO: All right, drum roll, please. Oh my gosh. You got it right.
AMEERA: What?
JOY DOLO: You did it, Ameera. I'm so proud of you.
AMEERA: I can't believe that. I never get that right.
JOY DOLO: You never get it right. Well, this time you did. All right, so first up was the right to go on strike, 1935. And so a strike is when workers stop working until they're treated better by their bosses. And workers have gone on strike for centuries but the right to strike in the US became officially a protection in 1935.
And this is when the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was passed. It also outlines rules and guidelines for strikes. That's neat. And then the next two was the five day workweek and guaranteed minimum wage. Both of those were from 1938.
So this was a tricky one. The five day workweek and a guaranteed minimum wage were both part of a law called the Fair Labor Standards Act, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938. And as we said before, the five day workweek means you work five days and get two days off for rest. And in 1938, President Franklin D Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which set the standard workweek at 44 hours.
By 1940, it was down to 40 hours. And this meant that most Americans worked eight hours, five days per week. Before that it was common for American workers to work 60 or more hours every week. If they worked five days, that would be 12 hours each day. 12 hours each day? That's nuts. When do they sleep? When do they eat? When do they-- when do they go to the mall?
AMEERA: I could never work that much.
JOY DOLO: I know. How many hours a day do you think you'd want to work? If you could choose.
AMEERA: Probably six or seven. That's how much I go to school now, so it wouldn't be as bad.
JOY DOLO: That's a good point. If you go to school for six or seven hours, that should be like the working hour time. I think I'd like to work for two hours a day because I think I could get a lot done in two hours. Like when I have my coffee buzz in the morning, I just-- I get so much done. And then right around noon I start to get sleepy and then I have my snack.
And then I-- and then I want to take a nap. Anywho, the first guaranteed minimum wage was set at $0.25 an hour. And today the federal minimum wage is $7.25. But many states have a higher minimum wage, $7.25 is what some people make hourly.
AMEERA: Wow.
JOY DOLO: Is that surprising to you?
AMEERA: Yeah, that's surprising. Well, it's really surprising that it grew like $7 in not even 100 years.
JOY DOLO: Isn't that nuts? And then also we're still-- we've been working 40 hours a week since 1940 and we're in 2024.
AMEERA: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: Do you think that needs to change or do you think it's OK?
AMEERA: I feel like some people should definitely work less because that doesn't even count that some people work two jobs.
JOY DOLO: Yeah, yeah, you're right. If you had to have two full time jobs, like, you'd be working 80 hours a week and you wouldn't have time for your friends or your family or anything else that kind of makes life awesome.
AMEERA: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: Join us next week for a new episode all about the history of rap music.
AMEERA: Thanks for listening.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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