Your barista used to be called a "jerk".

Not an insult — a job title.

The person who made your great-grandmother's ice-cream soda at the drugstore counter was called a soda-fountain jerk. The name came from the jerking motion of pulling the carbonation tap handle.

That's your barista's direct ancestor.

Swipe to trace the full family tree: five roles across five centuries, from medieval ale-wives who brewed from home to the marble-counter technician who invented the prototype for everything that came after. Card 3 maps every physical tool that changed hands along the way — clay jugs to burr grinders.

The espresso machine only showed up in the 1990s. Before that, "specialty coffee" didn't exist as a job category. The soda jerk held the counter for seventy years.

#laborhistory #occupationalhistory #barista #coffeeculture #dataviz #infographic #workhistory #didyouknow #sodafountain #historyofwork