Knocker-Upper
Today we have the alarm on our phones to make sure we wake up, and before we all had smartphones, we had alarm clocks responsible for waking us up. Did you ever wonder how people got up for work in the morning before alarm clocks were around? That was the job of the Knocker-Upper – a person who’s job was to wake up people every morning.
Until 1847, knocker-uppers were hired to wake up people. The knocker-uppers had different techniques for waking people up, but mostly they would knock on their bedroom windows with long sticks, or whistle at them using hollow sticks. If neither of those approaches worked, they would throw peas at the window. That’s how people would wake up in time for work!