Daily AncestorCordwainer
A cordwainer was a shoemaker who made new shoes from new leather, as opposed to a cobbler who mended old ones.
The word comes from cordwain, a fine leather first associated with Cordoba in Spain. A cordwainer cut and stitched new shoes and boots, usually in a small shop with an apprentice or two.
In Britain the trade drew a line between cordwainers, who made new footwear, and cobblers, who repaired it. American records do not always respect that line, and by the mid 1800s most census takers simply wrote shoemaker.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1880 census
Wm. Bell, 47, Cordwainer, Mass.
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Daily Ancestor. "Cordwainer." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/cordwainer. Last checked 2026-10-01.