Shoe Fitting X-Ray Device...long gone

See X-Ray Shoe Fitting Machine below.

A shoe sales gimmick...but cool. These machines were common in just about every shoe store in the country in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Who knew of the potential dangers and they were plagued with technical problems. It is curious to note that the machines [made by the Adrian X-Ray Company] were designed by the guy that designed the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. Amazing what the public is subject to for a sales pitch.

The primary component of a shoe-fitting x-ray unit was the fluoroscope which consisted essentially of an x-ray tube mounted near the floor and wholly or partially enclosed in a shielded box and a fluorescent screen. The x-rays penetrated the shoes and feet and then struck the fluorescent light. This resulted in an image of the feet within the shoes. The fluorescent image was reflected to three viewing ports at the top of the cabinet, where the customer, the salesperson, and a third person (your mother?) could view the image at the same time.

The Wisconsin Historical Society offers this...

X-Ray Shoe Fitting Machine

Simplex fluoroscope machine made by
X-Ray Shoe Fitter, Inc., Milwaukee, Wisconsin
and most likely used in a Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin shoe store, c. 1945-1955.
(Museum object #1992.109)

In the late 1940s, Noren's Shoes of Sturgeon Bay attracted customers with the slogan "Shoes of Quality, X-Ray Fitted." Like many other shoe stores at the time, Noren's used an X-ray machine, or fluoroscope, to assure customers of a perfectly fitted shoe. While improvements in fit were dubious, fluoroscopes did succeed in "scientifically" marketing shoes for more than a quarter century.

Fluoroscopes consist of an X-ray generating tube and a fluorescent screen. In use, the patient stands between the two, and an image of the patient's body appears on the screen. Unlike still X-ray images made on photographic film, fluoroscopes allow doctors to observe a moving body in real time. Shoe fitting fluoroscopes consisted of a lead-shielded X-ray tube in the base of a metal or wooden cabinet. The customer placed his or her feet in a slot near the bottom of the machine, and when activated by the salesperson, the projected X-rays produced an image of the feet within the shoes. Three metal viewing scopes topped the cabinet: one each for the customer (often a child), the salesperson and presumably a parent. Fortunately, the X-rays did not continue directly through to the viewers' eyes, but were reflected by mirrors to the viewing ports. With repeated use of the fluoroscope with different pairs of shoes, an enterprising clerk could entice customers to find the perfect fit.

Shoe-fitting fluoroscopes were invented almost simultaneously in the United States and England. The American version has its roots in World War I, with the United States military's intense study of the fit of boots and its effect on soldiers' health. Dr. Jacob Lowe, a Boston physician, first developed a fluoroscope for quickly diagnosing veterans with foot problems. After the war, he converted the device for use in shoe stores. His 1919 patent application claims that by using this device, "a shoe merchant can positively assure his customers that they need never wear ill-fitting boots and shoes."

Milwaukee quickly became a center of the new technology. According to his obituary, Milwaukee shoe dealer S. J. Brouwer began using a fitting fluoroscope in 1919, and Lowe assigned his patent, finally granted in 1927, to the Adrian Company of Milwaukee. Eventually, X-Ray Shoe Fitter, Inc. of Milwaukee, which produced both the Adrian and Simplex fluoroscope lines, emerged as the leading manufacturer of shoe-fitting fluoroscopes in the United States.

The X-ray shoe fitter quickly became a fixture in American shoe stores, taking advantage of several developing social trends. By continuing to celebrate the amazing properties of X-rays and radium, popular magazines and newspapers of the 1920s reinforced the notion that the devices were modern, scientific, and infallible. In addition, since the early 20th century, the "scientific motherhood" movement had pressured American women to incorporate the latest medical and scientific innovations into their domestic duties to be considered successful mothers. At the same time, advertisers increasingly targeted children. The fluoroscope proved a powerful method of encouraging parents to bring children to their store: as the Canadian Shoe and Leather Journal put it in 1947, "Kiddies love it!"

While the shoe industry trade literature often discussed fluoroscopes, the articles seldom claimed that they improved a shoe's fit - perhaps because fluoroscopes provided only a one-dimensional view from above. Instead, articles emphasized that fluoroscopes could "scientifically" verify salesmen's recommendations and help steer customers to more expensive shoes.

Even as shoe stores rushed to add the machines, the dangers of X-ray radiation were becoming more evident. By the 1920s many X-ray pioneers -- who had received massive doses of seemingly harmless X-rays during their experiments -- suffered well-publicized, painful and often gruesome deaths. Even before the shoe-fitting fluoroscope was patented, the first, tentative national guidelines on radiation exposure were established.

While the theoretical dangers of excessive radiation exposure were already fairly well known within the scientific field, actual data on shoe store exposure did not appear until the late 1940s. Towards the end of that decade articles in medical journals began to document the potential health effects of shoe-fitting fluoroscopes (skin and bone marrow damage; growth problems). At the same time, other research discovered that a high percentage of the nearly 10,000 fluoroscopes in use in the United States emitted dangerous levels of radiation for both customers and clerks. Various health and industrial hygiene organizations began recommending against using the devices. On November 24, 1950, Milwaukee became one of the first cities in the nation to regulate the operation and location of the machines, and in 1957 Pennsylvania became the first state to outlaw their use. By 1960, 34 states had banned the machines.

By then, shoe-fitting fluoroscopes were already on their way out, not so much because of regulations as because they had lost their marketing effectiveness. X-ray shoe fitters were now more likely to alienate well-informed customers than to attract them with promises of infallible technology.