The Dictionary of Occupational Titles or D-O-T (DOT) refers to a publication produced by the United States Department of Labor which helped employers, government officials, and workforce development professionals to define over 13,000 different types of work, from 1938 to the late 1990s.
The DOT was created by job analysts who visited thousands of US worksites to observe and record the various types of work, and what was involved.
Innovative at the time, the DOT included information still used today in settling EEO and Workers Comp claims, like the physical abilities required to perform that occupation, and the time and repetitiveness of those physical actions (i.e. standing, sitting, lifting 20 pounds or more, seeing at a distance, near vision, hearing quiet sounds, ignoring loud sounds).
[1] The last government-published version of the D-O-T was published in March 1999 as two volumes with additional information related to the O*NET database.
[4] The Dictionary of Occupational Titles was first published in 1938 and "emerged in an industrial economy and emphasized blue-collar jobs.