Daily AncestorShoemaker
A shoemaker made shoes and boots; census takers were told to use the word only for a man who made whole shoes in a small shop, not a factory hand.
Shoes were once made one at a time by hand, by shoemakers or cordwainers; a cobbler, by contrast, mended them. By the 1700s many shops already divided the work among masters, journeymen and apprentices, and factory production grew in the later 1800s.
The 1870 and 1880 census instructions said not to call a man a shoemaker or bootmaker unless he made the entire boot or shoe in a small shop. If he worked in or for a boot and shoe factory, the entry was to say so.
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Daily Ancestor. "Shoemaker." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/shoemaker. Last checked 2026-10-10.