re: Hardest job in 19th and early 20th centuries America?

I wouldn't want to be a Chinaman building a railroad through the Sierras. I wouldn't have a Chinaman's chance!

Hardest job I ever had was I was a "skidder" on a pipeline one summer when I was in college. It was extremely wet summer in south Mississippi and we were in mud most every day. The skid was used to hold the pipe up so the welders came behind tack them followed by the real welders that finished the job. These skids were green wood probably a 4x6 inch and 6ft long, probably 30 lbs a piece and the folks what threw off the trailer cared not whether the skid went straight into the mud just hit kind of flat. Ever tried to pull a 30# piece of wood out stuck a foot into the mud? Certainly taught me I needed a college education.

Janitor at the peep shows in old Times Square.

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A few come to mind such as Sewage or Slave Laborer, but I would not want to be a Coal Miner.

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In 1990 we had a drought in south alabama. We tried to irrigate 150 acres of peanuts with traveling irrigation. We had to tote the pipe to each 10 acre run and them water at night. Get up and break the pipe down and move it to the next run. Worked 16 hr days for almost 3 months strait. I took one Sunday off during the whole thing. All of the peanuts we harvested went SEG 3 anyways. It was a disaster. The hardest work other than that is roofing during July or August in south Alabama. Would drink 2 gallons of mixed Gatorade and never take a piss.

Piano player in a whore house. They seemed to get shot on the reg, in old movies.

Shovled poop for a living, not that bad. You get used to it. Livestock gonna poop, somebody has to pick it up.

Cracked quartz in a deep mine out West with one of these puppies. Hard work but after a few months you wound up with powerful upper body strength . If you do it as a young man, you will have stamina that will follow you for the rest of your life.

Stay at home mom. Y’all don’t understand.

Getting on a sailboat in Gloucester Mass
Sailing South along N and S America and around Cape Horn
Harpooning whales in a 40 ft rowboat
Hacking them into 3x3x3 ft chunks of blubber on deck
Boiling the blubber to get whale oil
Returning to Gloucester Mass TWO YEARS LATER
Selling the oil to light lamps

Refractory guys in a steel mill melt shop. I don't know how they do it.

Coal miner for sure. Pretty deadly back then. Paid in scrip. Living in shitty company towns. Buying stuff at the company store. Basically why West Virginia is the third world country it is today.