photo #1769954

A Shoe-fitting fluoroscope, an active xray machine that was used in shoe stores to see how well shoes fit. From the 1920s until the 1970s, shoe stores were dangerous places. At the center of the shopping experience was the shoe-fitting fluoroscope—a pseudoscientific machine that became a token of mid-century marketing deception. At the beginning of the 1930s, Bally was the first company to import the X-ray Shoe Fitters, also known as pedoscopes into Switzerland from the UK. Primarily marketed for use with children, the child (or the adult customer) would place their feet in the opening provided and while remaining in a standing position, look through a viewing porthole at the top of the fluoroscope down at the X-ray view of the feet and shoes. Two other viewing portholes on either side enabled the parent and a sales assistant to observe the child’s toes being wiggled to show how much room for the toes there was inside the shoe. The bones of the feet were clearly visible. The “foot-o-scope” eventually fell out of favour because of health concerns but not until the 1970’s and no follow-up studies of customers can be performed for lack of records.