The "Shoes with a bit of Radiation" Story

The shoe-fitting fluoroscope.

It was an ordinary day.  Mom and I are heading to the department store to buy a pair of shoes for me.  Seems that I outgrow them so fast these days.  Sometimes have to travel downtown more than once a year to get outfitted with a new pair of shoes that will be good for school and church.  There are a few different department stores downtown, but mom and I like to head to Garvins because they have a really neat x-ray machine that you can check to see if your shoes fit you OK when you try them on.  The machine has a low platform that you stand on and stick your feet into the machine and look through a viewfinder to see your feet.  The machine was called a shoe-fitting fluoroscope and allowed me, mom and the salesman to see if my new shoes were the perfect fit.  If they fit, mom got a certificate that she could show to dad.  They actually used radiation and although it was directed at your feet, a substantial amount would scatter or leak in all directions.  Shielding materials were sometimes displaced to improve image quality.  This resulted in a whole-body dose that was more harmful to the salesman than to mom or me, since he was getting blasted with the x-rays all day.  Garvins was a great store and they sold plenty of shoes in the basement of the store so the salesmen were getting zapped quite frequently.  The machine was used from the early 20s until the early 70s, believe it or not.  In 1948 a scientific study evaluated the machines and sparked concern about the radiation dosage that people were receiving.  The study found that the machine was ineffective for fitting shoes, but stores were reluctant to get rid of them because parents felt it was a good way for them to see how well the shoes actually fit their children.  I imagine if there are any salesmen left from that era who may have contracted cancer, they might be looking for a personal injury lawyer right now.  Garvins eventually got rid of the machine and my mom switched to a store closer to home to buy me shoes.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

Eye pieces on the bottom were for mom and the salesman while I looked in the eyepiece on top.

Certificate that mom would get to prove the shoes fit.