10 Jobs That No Longer Exist

5. Lamplighter

Electricity sure did change a lot of things, including the way we lit our streets at night! Before light bulbs, the common means of illuminating the dark sky were by candle, oil, or gas. These lights needed to be manually lit, hence the lamplighter. Most lamplighters used a giant pole to reach the light and would come back in the early hours of the morning to extinguish it.

4. MilkMen

OK, so here’s another profession that might technically still exist, but not in the way we remember it! Growing up, there was nothing better than waking up to a bottle of fresh milk waiting on your doorstep. The milkman was always friendly, wearing that trademark uniform and ready to deliver the day’s fresh milk. Sure, there are still services that will deliver milk to your door, but it’s just not the same.

3. Ice Cutter

Before the mechanical refrigerator, we had the icebox. In order to keep an icebox cool, you needed ice (who’da thunk it, right?). In the colder parts of the country, ice cutters would travel out onto the frozen bodies of water and cut out large blocks of ice to be used in the warmer months. While some ice cutting was seen as a chore for farmers, some operations were quite large, containing a crew of several dozens of men and harvesting up to 1500 tons of ice a day.