What was Abraham Lincoln's occupation before becoming a lawyer?

Before becoming a lawyer, Abraham Lincoln worked as a surveyor. In New Salem, Illinois, he taught himself practical surveying and used the work to earn a steadier income while continuing his broader self-education.

Lincoln became an assistant to John Calhoun, the county surveyor, despite having no formal surveying training. He studied borrowed books on geometry, trigonometry, and surveying techniques, then learned how to measure and map property boundaries in the rapidly developing Illinois frontier.

Surveying was only one of several jobs Lincoln held before entering the legal profession. He had also worked as a flatboatman, store clerk, postmaster, and militia soldier. That variety can make the question seem broader than it is, but “surveyor” is the standard trivia answer because it was his immediate professional occupation before he pursued law.

Lincoln stopped working as a surveyor in February 1836. He received his law license later that year, on September 9, after studying legal texts largely on his own.