Do you remember the X-ray machine that allowed you to see whether or not your shoes fit properly?

From the start, the fluoroscope, touted the authority of modern technology to sell more shoes, functioned more as sales gimmick than a fitting aid. Many shoe retailers exploited the power of this marketing ploy. The machines proved a valuable ally of the retailer. By enabling a salesman to demonstrate the correctness of the fitting, it permitted him to impress customers with the reliability of his modern service.

This machine was promoted to insure the best possible fit, making for longer-lasting shoes and suggested families would not have to buy as many pairs for themselves or their children.

If you were born before 1950 you likely remember an unusual wooden box – known as a shoe-fitting machine – that once lured thousands of people into shoe stores across the country. In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, the shoe-fitting x-ray unit was a common shoe store sales promotion device and nearly every shoe store had one. At their peak 10,000 of these devices were in use in the USA.

In the early 1950’s when it was back-to- school time in Huntington, West Virginia, mom would pile my brothers, my sister and I into the station wagon and head to Thom McAn or Buster Brown for our brand new pairs of shoes. With 5 children, our shoes had to last as long as possible so Mom needed to know our shoes fit properly and our feet would have “room to grow”.

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, resulting in an image of each foot.

All we had to do was put on our new shoes and step onto the machine. There were three “portholes” for viewing the x-ray. One for you, one for Mom, and one for the salesman. In the glowing greenish-yellow light we could see the bones in our feet and the outline of our shoes. While Mom paid for our new shoes, my brothers, sister and I took turns x-raying our feet. When we tired of that, we’d put our hands in the machine to watch our fingers move. What a fun machine!

Fun? These machines emitted dangerous levels of radiation for both customers and clerks. For three decades, millions of children and adults in the United States peered into these machines for an inside view of their wiggling toes. The power supply drew 7 amps and put out 50,000 volts at 5 milliamps, which generated substantial radiation out of an X-ray tube. The only thing between the customer’s feet and the X-ray tube was a .039-inch-thick piece of aluminum. The machines were often out of adjustment and radiation leaked into the surrounding areas.

It was only when shoe store employees began showing signs of sometimes severe radiation; people began to question the safety of these devices. The hazards appeared not so much to the occasional shoe store customer as to the sales clerks who ran the machines and sometimes to professional shoe models who tested shoes for manufacturers using machines like this; one woman’s foot was damaged so badly in testing shoes that it had to be amputated.

In 1957, Pennsylvania became the first state to totally ban the use of the shoe-fitting fluoroscope. The associated hazards eventually put an end to continuous-beam fluoroscopy by untrained operators.

By 1970, shoe fitting x-ray units were banned in 33 and strict regulation in the remaining 17 states made their operation impractical. Believe it or not, a shoe-fitting x-ray unit was found in 1981 in a department store in Madison, West Virginia – still in use in the store’s shoe department! When it was pointed out to the store managers that it was against West Virginia law to operate a shoe-fitting x-ray unit, they donated it to the The U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Luckily we only purchased shoes once or twice a year.