Golden Age careers

[Michaelson]

I began my working career as a forms draftsman in a government printing shop. The tools of my trade at that time was an engineering ruling pen, drop bow compass, crow quill pens, and engineering rules.....literally pen and ink on paper. We used a Varityper for type setting when doing pasteup (it was the second model ever made, patent dates in the early 20's. I saw the first model in the Smithsonian!:eusa_doh: ). What I'm finding a bit disturbing now is that the very drafting tools I used on a daily basis can now be purchased in antique stores, and are usually mis-tagged.

SO, I could easily do that again, as that particular trade used the same tools (with the exception that pasteup was done using rubber cement rather than waxers, though that transition was going on when I started, so I did both) clear back in the 1800's, and didn't change dramatically until the late 1970's with the introduction of electronic justifying/typesetters and rapidograph drafting pens.

Regards! Michaelson

 

[Barry]

Reference Librarian - defintely!

Just not the stuffy, timid, or super-eccentric type you usually see in the movies.

Barry

 

[Nathan Flowers]

Agreed. Reference Librarian, most definitely. It would be really interesting to do the work without any electronic sources, and it would make you take greater care to build and maintain the collection.

 

[CharlieH.]

Animator at Warner Brothers, Or at least an assistant. Working on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies is one of many dreams that'll never come true...

 

[Rosie]

Ha

Not a riveter!?!

Maybe I would have done some riveting in my down time.

 

[The Wolf]

clarification

Do you wonder what job I would most likely have or which occupation I would like to have from the Golden Era?
I like The D.A.s thoughts. I would have liked to be raised by scientists to be mentally and physically tops so I could help mankind.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

My current career path as a lawyer would transition easily into the Golden Era.

I would however, have loved to be a ship's captain back in age of real ocean liners and battleships however. Back in the 'teens and 20s.

Either that or a mail pilot in the 20s.

 

[Mr_Misanthropy]

Acme Investigations

OK, i'm changing my answer. After giving it much thought, I think I would have loved to be a golden era private detective. Not just because it looks cool in the movies, it would have just been interesting to investigate crimes and such without all the fancy CSI forensics equipment. But would I have to take up smoking and start wearing trench coats to keep up the image?

 

[Shaul-Ike Cohen]

Golden Era PIs didn't investigate crimes. They followed clients' spouses.

Today, with other divorce laws, they investigate boring cases of economic fraud, and from time to time look for runaway teenagers, who use to turn up at the same places all the time.

Sorry.

 

[Viola]

Determined to bring all the dubious professionalism and undeniable excitement to botany that Dr. Henry Jones has brought to archeology, I'm going to smuggle garden plants and trees out of China. lol

[geek]Plant smuggling was actually a big thing for some British explorers. That's how we got blue corydalis. And they "discovered" the New Dawn redwood which was thought extinct.[/geek]

 

[magneto]

...Hmm, I'm realistic. I would be the (brainy yet glamorous) irreplaceable secretary to someone (fascinating, important and marriageable).

 

[Shaul-Ike Cohen]

I have a suspicion that not so few Loungers would have been passing their leasure time in strange stores, looking for vintage clothing from the 1890s.

 

[scotrace]

i would have shined shoes

Get rhythm! When you get the blues... c'mon get rhythm!...

 

[Grimstar]

Well...let's see...

I would probably be just what I am now...a tailor. And seeing as how most of the equipment I currently use actually is from the golden era (or older) ...it wouldn't be that much different. lol Just as an example...the shears in my avatar pic are the ones I actually use when cutting out, and they are at least 80 years old, possibly a lot older.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

I would like to have worked with the early rotary-wing aircraft pioneers.

 

[penfencer]

You'd find me working/starving as a painter down in the East Village in NYC.

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

I'd head over to Burbank and see of Kelly Johnson was hiring. I have a few ideas for improving the P-38.

 

[Angelicious]

Well, I'd like to think I'd be either:

"Over-educated", and married to someone moneyed enough to leave me time for committees and societies dedicated to helping improve the lot of those more "unfortunate" than myself,
or
Running a despicably popular and horribly exclusive nightspot filled with wags, wits, and wantons (and fire exits! No Coconut Groves for me! ).

But realistically I'd be a factory worker or domestic help, or an office worker if I was lucky.

 

[scotrace]

I have a suspicion that not so few Loungers would have been passing their leasure time in strange stores, looking for vintage clothing from the 1890s.

"Those 10-button coats are getting impossible to find. Last week I ran across a tri-corner hat - with the trim intact!!..."

 

[Baron Kurtz]

"Those 10-button coats are getting impossible to find. Last week I ran across a tri-corner hat - with the trim intact!!..."

That would most likely be me ...

bk