In history, we must concede that many of the worst jobs in the past were done by children. If there’s anything in the chimney sweep entry to go by. But it was far from the only one as child labor has been a mainstay in our world far longer than we’d like to admit. Kids worked in fields, mines, factories, on ships, and on the battlefield. And it’s one of the reasons why child labor is such a horrible thing our day in age. Still, one of these jobs will pertain to a child-dominated profession such as drummer boy. Nonetheless, there are probably people who once imagined themselves as a heroic old western lawman like Wyatt Earp. Perhaps they fancied themselves owning a large plantation which sounds kind of sick if you dig into it. Or possibly be a gladiator in the arena fighting for honor. Or perhaps envy the women on Mob Wives, which exists for some reason. In any respect, here are some more romanticized historical jobs and the dark realities behind them.

31. Old West Lawman – No hero is more celebrated in westerns than the Old West lawman. Wearing a star on his badge of either sheriff or marshal, he is the man between law and order and complete anarchy. But before you slap on that badge, know that this is less town hero and more glorified janitor. While movie lawmen spend their days protecting hapless townspeople from dangerous outlaws, you’ll spend most of your time breaking up saloon brawls, dealing with drunks, and enforcing local ordinances. You’ll also do plenty of administrative tasks like collecting local taxes, serving court orders, and doing endless paperwork. All of which take up far more of your time than chasing outlaws. Yet, when you deal with rustlers, bandits, gunfighters, robbers, and outlaws, then hope you’re fine with solitary rides through desolate, unforgiving terrain. If you need back up, expect it to take hours or days away so you’ll have to face Native Americans, deadly weather, and fatal ambushes on your own. While bad guns, escapable wooden jails, and rudimentary investigative methods such as relying on wanted posters in saloons will make catching criminals incredibly difficult. Your time on the job will likely not be long due to low life expectancy, especially in a world of primitive sanitation and poor medical care. Should you get shot, recovering in a remote outpost without the proper treatment often proved fatal. If you’re a sheriff, as an elected official, you’ll have to constantly campaign and please the local voting base to keep your badge. Alienate powerful ranchers or corrupt politicians, consider yourself out of a job or blacklisted entirely. But at least it pays wells well, right? Actually given the unreliable pay, it’s not unusual for frontier lawmen to straddle the line between law enforcement and illicit activities like gambling and protection rackets just to make ends meet. Then there’s the fact you’re working in a clunky justice system where suspects often walked free due to lack of evidence so expect some of your dangerous arrests being entirely pointless.

32. Plantation Owner – Slavery is an absolutely wretched institution where people were forced to work against their will, denied any semblance of dignity, broke up families, created centuries of generational trauma within whole communities, and left a toxic stain on the fabric of humanity many still don’t want to reckon with. However, most of its recent depictions usually don’t ignore this reality. And even more quaint and misleading portrayals often offend people so much that they’re willing to call bullshit. However, when it comes to portraying plantation owners, they’re often portrayed as wealthy proprietors living a carefree lavish lifestyle in fancy mansions while their forced workforce silently suffers. While many poorer whites aspire to be like them someday. Yet, while plantation owners built immense wealth on the backs of enslaved people, they led a way of life that was inherently toxic, volatile, and deeply paranoid. Should you own a large plantation in the Antebellum South, expect to live in a perpetual state of terror over your slaves potentially rebelling against you for reasons like constant whippings, constant abuse, forced labor, treating them less than human, breaking up their families, sexual coercion, and other things. Because slaves outnumbered whites on most plantations, the system relies heavily on extreme brutality to retain control. Such constant paranoia will make planters like you psychological prisoners in your own homes so you’ll be forced to live under heavy guard. Since you have absolute legal control over other human beings, expect to live in a culture of constant suspicion, knowing that your life, livelihood, and property are under threat every day through daily acts of resistance, sabotage, and escape. And that’s nothing compared to what’s coming in the 1860s. In addition, you’ll live highly isolated from major towns and cultural centers. While the Southern climate and mosquito-infested swampy environments make fine breeding grounds for disease like malaria and yellow fever (both of which don’t really have treatments like). So expect you and your family to frequently fall victim to deadly outbreaks. But at least there’s a good payout, right? Well, as a planter, you operate on a highly risky and inefficient business model. You’ll have to tie almost all your capital up in your slave and land purchases, leaving you deeply vulnerable to market crashes, fluctuating crop prices, and bad weather. Many plantation families like yours were heavily in debt to Northern banks and constantly on the brink of financial ruin. Sure, this doesn’t seem to make the plantation lifestyle seem much fun, doesn’t it?

33. Drummer Boy – Thanks to entities like Disney and war movies, many boys probably imagined themselves being a drummer boy at some point. Especially after hearing the story of Johnny Shiloh who was a real guy. However, the reality behind such Disney biopic treatments is was far grimmer. So if you’re a boy between the ages of 12-17 and wish to take up the battered drum, here’s what you need to know. For one, since your sick beats serve as a vital communication method on the battlefield before radio, you and the buglers will be a high-value targets for enemy snipes. Since drumbeats and bugle calls are the only ways to issue battlefield commands. So enemy sharpshooters and skirmishers will target you to throw your army into chaos. Because you have to communicate orders across an entire battle line, you must stand out in the open. Often right near the officers and regiment color while marching directly into enemy lines to keep up morale. When fighting’s done, you often must carry stretchers which involves collecting and carrying your maimed or dying comrades off the field. Second, once you put on that uniform, you’ll be treated exactly like an adult soldier and your commanders won’t make allowances for your youth. You’ll also severe punishments like whippings, beatings, and even executions either for disobeying orders or crying on duty. Third, you have to endure the same brutal campaign conditions as your fellow troops such as long marches, inadequate footwear, starvation rations, and freezing weather, leading to rampant disease and sickness that will mow down an army faster than bullets ever did.

34. WWII Soviet Soldier – During World War II, Soviet soldiers were the key fighters who braved the fierce elements and fought for the glory of Mother Russia as well as turned the tide of the war during the Battle of Stalingrad. However, out of all the forces fighting for the Allies, the Soviet solider suffered the most on the Eastern Front. Of course, given Mother Russia’s hour of urgent need, you’ve likely been conscripted and don’t have a choice in the matter of serving. So before you put on your fur hat and venture to the Eastern Front, here’s some info. When you’re serving the Russian military, know that Uncle Joe Stalin demands absolute obedience. If you’re stationed at a “blocking detachment” behind the front lines, expect orders to shoot retreating soldiers. Here in Mother Russia, commanders have executed thousands of conscripted Red Army soldiers you to enforce discipline. They’ll also see many of you conscripts as politically suspect and treat you as expendable. In addition, expect shortages of food, boots, and winter clothing. Sure, US Lend-Lease aid money will boost Soviet logistics. But basic conditions at the Eastern Front will remain harsh throughout the Great Patriotic War. Naturally, you’ll endure freezing winters and deep mud bogging down operations. Since sanitation’s poor, expect rampant issues with lice, bedbugs, and diseases like dysentery. Oh, and due to massive troop needs and the loss of experienced officers due to a few of Stalin’s pre-war purges many of you will be sent into combat with very little training. This gap in credibility will contribute to an exorbitant loss of life. So it’s no wonder that over 20 million Russian soldiers and civilians will die by the end of the war. With entire divisions frequently wiped out during the initial German invasion and chaotic retreats. Still, despite these conditions, the Red Army will ultimately adapt, mobilize vast numbers, and industrial resources to drive the Germans out. Oh, and if you get captured, don’t expect the Germans to treat you with any semblance of decency. Still, on the bright side, unlike other armed forces during World War II, they accept women.

35. Tanner – Now the historical profession of tanner isn’t depicted as the kind of job most people want to work in since it involved making leather for clothes and shoes. Yet, many people have no idea how bad it actually was. Throughout most of history, tanning was considered one of the foulest, most grueling, and dangerous professions. For one, tanning involves soaking raw animal hides in foul mixtures that include putrefied dog shit, pigeon droppings, and stale urine. Unsurprisingly, this created an overwhelming, stomach-churning odor permanently clinging to you. You also regularly work with dangerous, caustic substances. You’d inhale toxic leather dust as well as used compounds like arsenic and sulfuric acid. These can cause severe respiratory problems, chemical burns, and risked heavy metal poisoning. Every day, you stand for hours in deep chemical pits pulling and scraping heavy, waterlogged, and rotting hides by hand, which is physically exhausting. You also have to work outdoors or in unventilated shed, which means enduring freezing winters and sweltering summers while continuously wrestling with wet, slippery materials. Naturally, due to the unavoidable, pervasive stench of rotting stench and bodily fluids, most historical societies see you as social pariahs. So often you’ll be forced to live and work in the outskirts of towns, separate from polite society, simply because of how you stank. But at least it’s an essential job that pays well? Essential, yes. But despite tanning being a highly specialized skill that’s essential to prevent hides form rotting and turning them into wearable cloth, tanners like you were often viewed as doing dirty, bottom-tier, menial labor. You receive hardly any money or free time for your troubles. While even lower-class peasants even look down on you, including the local pig farmer.

36. Miller – On the surface, being a miller doesn’t seem too bad. After all, it’s not a lower-class job and you might own a windmill or watermill to grind grain. It’s also a rather essential job as well so what’s the catch? Well, if you live in the Middle Ages, there are plenty with an elderly senile Spanish nobleman mistaking your wind-powered production building as a giant is the least of your worries. First, the work environment is extremely dangerous. As a miller, you routinely inhale fine grain dust, often resulting in a chronic lung condition called “miller’s lung.” Also, millstones running dry can easily create sparks and ignite airborne dust, resulting in catastrophic explosions. Second, expect everyone in town to see you as crooked. Since peasants are legally required to have grain ground by the lord’s official miller and can’t process it at home, they must trust you to accurately measure out their flour and take your cut. Due to the lack of standardized weights and measures and transparent measuring equipment, this opaque process fuels widespread suspicion amongst the peasantry that millers like you are skimming extra flour for themselves. Finally, since you’re economically dependent on your local lord, you’ll often collect taxes or portions of the harvest on the lord’s behalf. Again placing you in angry peasants’ crosshairs during famines or bread riots. Sure, being a miller was a far cry from a lot of other historical professions. But it wasn’t necessarily one that merits any respect as the local lord’s bitch. Hey, at least you get a windmill and aren’t the executioner.

37. Gladiator – Ah, to be a gladiator in the Roman Coliseum. Cheering crowd, ferocious beasts, and bloody fights that are almost fatal. Are you not entertained? However, to be an ancient Roman gladiator is to be treated as a combination of professional athlete and prison athlete. Contrary to popular belief, most gladiators did live to fight another day as they were long-term investments no one would waste on a few matches. You can even be treated as a celebrity with endorsement deals. That being said, if you ever become a gladiator, it’s likely that it originally wasn’t your choice. Since you’d be classified as inflames, stripping you of your basic legal protections and placing you in Ancient Rome’s lowest tier alongside pimps, prostitutes, and actors. Though some freed people volunteered but mainly due to needing money if they had any sense. While most gladiators were often enslaved or prisoners of war. Nevertheless, you and your co-workers will be shackled to small cells at the training camp called the ludus, where you’ll live in terrible conditions. To provide just enough sustenance for the arena without giving way to expensive luxuries you’ll mostly eat barley and beans. This high-carb plant-based diet is specifically enforced to add an extra layer of fat to your body so superficial cuts and wounds bleed more visibly for the crowd’s entertainment. And sure, you’ll get the best medical care available to treat any arena injuries, ancient medical practices are rudimentary. And while most gladiators lived to fight another day, life expectancy was low with roughly ¼  to 1/3 of fighters dying in their first match. If you lose and the crowd or games sponsor didn’t grant you any mercy, expect your body to be unceremoniously poked with a hot iron to confirm death and dragged out of the arena. Sure, it’s a rough life, but if you stick at it long enough, win over the crowd, and win enough victories, you can receive a wooden sword and not have to fight another day. Except you’ll likely keep fighting as a free agent or as a trainer called a lanista because let’s be honest, you’ve been a gladiator for so long that you don’t really know what else to do with your life at this point. No wonder Spartacus successfully revolted at his gladiator school.

38. Mob Wife – Given that mob wives are a thing and there’s a mob wife aesthetic trend on TikTok, this needs to be discussed. Here in America, a mob wife in the popular imagination is an image of a woman with a luxurious lifestyle with no accounting for aesthetic taste. She’s brash, she’s confident, she’s tacky as hell, she doesn’t know what her husband does for work and doesn’t ask, and she stands by her man. Even if he constantly cheats on her or abuses her. So why do so many of them end up divorced? Nevertheless, despite what you see in the movies or on The Sopranos, being married to a gangster isn’t nearly the glamorous life many women seem to think it is. For one, even if your gangster husband may be a complete saint to you and your kids, much of your family life is going to revolve around whatever’s going on with him, especially if he ends up in prison or witness protection. Yet, it’s more likely that your gangster husband will be a complete shithead who treats you and your kids like utter garbage. He’ll also spend long periods of time away from home, most likely with his crime family. Second, you’ll likely know what he actually does for a living but you can never really discuss it with him or with anyone unless things go south, which they probably will at some point. Sometimes you may even be complicit in his activities. Third, despite what pop culture may tell you, most mob wives don’t live in luxury. Sure, some do, but most of the dolled-up mob wives you see are often married to the bosses. However, many married to the rank and file have daily worries about putting food on the table, their husbands not getting caught or killed by rivals, and keeping your kids off the street so they don’t end up like their dads. Some even work long hours to make ends meet and it’s probably not beyond the imagination that some rely on government aid programs like medical assistance and food stamps. Since illegal money opportunities aren’t always stable and a steady income isn’t always guaranteed. Especially if the husband winds up in the clink. And most of these women come from poverty and don’t have the education and skills to seek a job that pays a living wage. Fourth, marry a mobster and you’ll likely not have a good support system as you’ll be socially isolated from legitimate society. Sure, you may get to hang out with other mob wives, but they won’t stand by you should anything happen to your husband. And if your husband proves abusive, well, you’re likely not to call the cops.

39. Mistress – Now this entry isn’t really about what it’s like to be any married man’s side piece. This is about being a certain kind of mistress such as a rich guy’s kept woman. Yes, it may be luxurious at first. But being a wealthy man’s side piece might seem glamorous in some respect. However, if a wealthy Gilded Age tycoon wants to set you up in some nice brownstone, here are some things you need to know. First, accept that he’s never going to leave his wife. Sure, he may not love her but most wealthy and noble men don’t marry for love anyway. They marry for money, social connections, legitimacy, to secure the next generation, and expand their family networks. Dumping her for you just isn’t done and would prove social suicide. That being said, as your sugar daddy’s sidepiece, you exist completely outside the law. Since legal inheritance favored legitimate heirs, expect you and whatever bastards you have with him be legally barred from holding titles and be completely shut out from his estate. Because you have no legal rights to your lover’s assets, you should meticulously save and invest in the allowance he provides for you. Because you’ll always be at constant financial risk. If you don’t, he could leave you with nothing if he decides to dump you or die. Second, be invisible. While the fiercely patriarchal polite society might make accommodations for very discreet affairs, public exposure means instant banishment from respectable social circles. And if your man’s infidelity becomes public, other married women will see you as the villain and ostracize you. Since they’ll see you as a threat to their own households, rather than blame the husband for not keeping it in his pants. To survive, you must live entirely in the shadows. Meaning that your movements, housing, and social life are heavily policed to maintain propriety’s illusion. Because if you’re outed as a mistress, expect a difficult time reintegrating into polite society and securing a respectable, advantageous marriage. With elite society permanently marking you as “damaged goods” and into the very lifestyle you’re forced to maintain. Third, know that your sugar daddy has all the financial, societal, and legal cards. You can’t demand marriage, public commitment, or equal treatment without destroying the very arrangement that supports you. Of course, there were some mistresses who graduated to wives but not without breaking up families or causing a public scandal. But this doesn’t happen often.

40. Laundress – Because we live in an age of modernized washing machines, it’s difficult to imagine how doing laundry before this wonderful invention was like. Although most of us probably imagine a bunch of women washing clothes in the river. But in later times when industry reigned like the 1800s, there was the profession of laundress, which was a notoriously miserable job that involves washing other people’s clothes. Because if a family could afford to pay someone to do their laundry, it usually did. But before you take your washing bucket, here’s some pointers. First, every drop of water must be carried from a pump or well to be heated over heavy fires as you scrub fabric for hours in your 14-hour working day. The soap you’ll use isn’t the gentle stuff you bathe with. No, it’s harsh lye made from ash used to cut through grime, which regularly eats away at the skin on your hands. Some laundresses even used aged urine for dissolving stains and lifting dirt. Mmmm, who can resist your newly washed clothes smelling like you just wet the bed a week ago? Wringing out heavy, soaked garments requires immense grip and arm strength, often twisting clothes until your knuckles and joints became permanently damaged. While laundry days turn homes and communal wash houses into sweltering, damp factories. The constant humidity ruins air quality, and due to the physical strain, women sometimes fainted while working. While you’ll also have to iron as well. But at least the job pays well, doesn’t it? Actually no, but at least you don’t have to worry aging out and it served as a good side hustle for housewives. So if you think doing laundry’s difficult today, just remember that most women in the 1800s would dream of a mechanized washing machine.