A footwear question for UK oldies!!!?

Question

OK tell me I am not imagining this. In the 1950's I remember being taken to a shoe shop as a child, to be fitted for shoes. In the shoe shop there was an X-RAY MACHINE and you stood there, with your feet inside this machine. You were asked to wriggle your toes and the assistant could look through a viewer at the top - sort of like a ship's radar- and see whether the shoes fitted you properly. Can any one else remember such a thing? ..In my mind I seem to associate them with "Clark's" or "Start-rite" shoes for some reason. Were they actually X-ray machines in the true sense of the word, with a radioactive source, etc?

Answer 1

Many shoe stores had these machines. It is scary just how much radiation people (and not only the person trying on the shoes) were receiving. In the second website I provided, it actually says a shoe model had to have her leg amputated after developing radiation burns......

"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 all stores had one. It was estimated that there were 10,000 of these devices in use. "

http://www.mtn.org/quack/devices/shoexray.htm

More info at this site:

http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/shoefittingfluor/shoe.htm

Answer 2

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I so remember this machine! And this was in the 1970s - my parents took me to Clarks in Sauchiehall street (Glasgow) to get school shoes. Around the same time, the programme "Space 1999" was showing on a saturday morning - and on one episode there was a monster that ate people and spat out a bag of gloopy bones. This scared the pants off me.
Then I got taken into Clarks and was asked to put my feet into this machine - which looked EXACTLY like the space 1999 monster.
I screamed the place down!

Thanks for this question - I had forgotten this wonderful childhood memory lol!

PS -was it a gimmick - were our feet exposed to radiation by mere shop assistants?!! I dont know - I was only 6 or 7.

Answer 3

Yes! I remember this well. I think it was a true X-ray machine, because they didn't have the technology then to create an internal picture without using such crude methods.

The machines rapidly went out of favour when knowledge of the effects of over-exposure to X-rays became greater.

It's amazing the things that were done with 'new science' before any detrimental effects had been observed and there are archives of industrial diseases that resulted from workers being exposed to stuff both before AND after its effects became known.

Answer 4

You didn't imagine it. These X-ray machines were popular in the 1940s in the USA until it was discovered that they were giving the users very high doses of X-rays that could be damaging to their health. Laws were passed to ban their use so by the 1950s they were eliminated.

I remember seeing one in the late 1940s in a Penny's store in Orlando, Florida. It had been unplugged so people wouldn't use it.

Answer 5

I remember those machines. Let's face it, if a child has ill-fitting shoes to start with they can suffer with foot problems later in life. Were they radio-active? Simple answer, do your feet glow in the dark?

Answer 6

Yes! There was one in St Cuthbert's store in Bread Street, Edinburgh. I suspect the place is still radioactive.

Answer 7

Not imagining it. It used to be Clarks that did it in the UK. Found somebody had posted this elsewhere which confirms it http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/offline-shopping-misc/clarks/

Answer 8

Actually I think they did have some kind of thing like this... although I only have a vague memory of it.

Answer 9

yes i loved it you could see your toes.......it was clarks start right.........then all of a sudden they realised xrays were dangerous and the machines disappeared.

Answer 10

oldies what do you meanby oldies iam 28 and young