George Washington

1

A surveyor in the Shenandoah Valley – aged 16. Worked his way up to a wealthy landowner in a few years.

John Adams

2

Was a schoolmaster, while he tried to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. HE definitely didn’t like teaching, and would often ask the smartest kid in the class to teach in his stead.

Ended up going to law school at 21.

John F. Kennedy

3

Spent the summer of 1936 working as a ranch hand in Benzon, Arizona. He was 19 at the time.

Abraham Lincoln

4

Before he became a lawyer and embarked on a political career, he had several odd jobs, including his first as a general store clerk.

He also spent time as a well-respected wrestler for some additional coin when he was a teenager.

Andrew Jackson

5

At 14, he worked as a courier with a local military during the Revolutionary War. He even spent time as a British POW, nearly dying of starvation and smallpox.

Herber Hoover

6

Prior to becoming the 31st president, Hoover was a geologist and mining engineer in the 1890s, eventually becoming an independent mining consultant.

Prior to that, he was the student manager of both the Stanford baseball and football teams and helped organize the inaugural “Big Game” rivalry between the California Golden Bears and the Stanford Cardinals.

Woodrow Wilson

7

In 1887, aged 31, he was the head coach of the football team at Wesleyan University

Lyndon B. Johnson

8

As a young child, Johnson worked as a shoe shiner during summer vacation, as well as herded goats and other livestock on a relative’s farm.

Richard Nixon

9

When he was visiting family in Arizona in the 1920’s, he ended up working some odd jobs including a chicken plucker at a butcher and running a Wheel of Fortune booth at a local carnival called Slippery Gulch. He would have been a pre-teen at the time.

Gerald Ford

10

In the summer of 1936, when he was 23, he worked as a Park Ranger at Yellowstone National Park. One of his duties was as armed guard on a bear-feeding truck.

Ronald Reagan

11

While most know that he was an actor before entering politics, it’s not common knowledge that he started off working at a Ringlsing Bros. circus, bringing in $.25/hr as an unskilled labourer. A year later, he worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week as a lifeguard at Rock River in Illinois.

Andrew Johnson

12

The man who succeeded Abraham Lincoln as President, spent his childhood as an apprentice tailor to his mom.

James Garfield

13

Garfield’s tenure as President only lasted 7 months until his assassination, so he’s easily overlooked when comparing Presidents. He certainly had the work ethic for it.

As a child, he got his first job working for his cousin who owned a canal boat. He made $8 a month driving the boat’s mules.

Benjamin Harrison

14

Before the 23rd President started his law career, he had an old-school side hustle; a court crier. He made $2.30 a day announcing the proclamations of the court.

Bill Clinton

15

At 13, he started working as a grocer in Arkansas, and ended up persuading his boss to start selling comic books at the store. He ended up raking in some extra cash for his tenacity.

George W. Bush

16

After graduating from Harvard, Bush was a landman for an oil company in Texas, which meant he travelled the country to find places to drill. It wasn’t something he enjoyed, as it was a lot of hot days and heavy lifting.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

17

Before he led the Allied forces in Europe during WWII and his two terms as President, he had a humble night job.

Back in his youth in Kansas, he worked as a night supervisor at the Belle Springs Creamery.

Barack Obama

18

During his teen years, Obama worked at a Hawaii Baskin-Robbins. According to a few interviews, the job was fun, but it made his wrists hurt and soured him on the frozen snack for a few years.