A PERFECT FIT, A HIDDEN PRICE. When Shoe Stores Went Radioactive

The salesman greets you with a smile and gestures toward a tall wooden cabinet in the center of the store. "Step right up to our Foot-O-Scope!" he says. "You'll see the bones in her feet right through the shoe. Modern science—can't beat it for a perfect fit!"

Your daughter's eyes widen. The cabinet looks like something from the future—polished wood, chrome fixtures, three viewing ports like submarine periscopes. She slips her feet into an opening at the base. The salesman flips a switch. A ghostly green glow emanates from below.

Through the viewfinder, magic: her bones appear like an X-ray photograph, perfectly visible through the leather. She wiggles her toes and watches her skeleton dance. You peer into the second scope, nodding approvingly. The salesman checks the third, professional and assured.

Twenty seconds. Maybe thirty if you're really scrutinizing the fit.

What you don't know—what the salesman operating this machine twenty or thirty times per day doesn't know—is that your daughter is standing directly atop an unshielded X-ray tube, absorbing more radiation in those thirty seconds than from a modern chest X-ray.

But here's what's truly chilling: people did know. Not you, not the salesman, but scientists, physicians, inventors—the people who made these machines, who sold them, who regulated them. They had known for more than fifty years that X-rays were dangerous. They had known since before your daughter was born. Since before you were born.

The warnings had been there all along.

This is the story of how they were ignored.

On November 8, 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays—invisible rays that could pass through flesh to reveal bones beneath. He called them "X-rays," the X standing for "unknown." When he placed his wife Anna Bertha's hand between an X-ray tube and a photographic plate, the resulting image showed her bones and wedding ring floating ghostlike. She reportedly looked at it and said, "I have seen my death."¹

Within weeks, the discovery spread globally. By January 1896, physicians were using X-rays to locate bullets and diagnose broken bones. But they were also noticing something else: burns. Tissue damage. Hair loss.

The warnings began almost immediately.

In 1896—just months after Röntgen's discovery—Nikola Tesla experimented with X-rays and quickly noticed problems. He documented painful skin inflammation and what he called "temporary blindness." He warned colleagues about the effects.²

That same year, Thomas Edison—already famous for the light bulb and phonograph—began his own X-ray experiments. Working with his assistant Clarence Madison Dally, Edison developed the fluoroscope: a device with a fluorescent screen (hence the name) that glowed under X-ray exposure, allowing real-time viewing of bones and organs.³

In May 1896, Edison and Dally demonstrated the fluoroscope at an exhibition in New York City. Hundreds lined up to see their own skeletons. The spectacle was intoxicating. But Dally, who spent hours each day with his hands in the X-ray beam, began developing burns. He switched hands. The burns worsened.

In 1901, Dr. William Rollins, a Boston dentist, published the first systematic warnings. He had conducted experiments showing that X-rays could kill animals and harm unborn children. He urged the use of lead shielding and strict protocols. He wrote: "X-light is a form of energy, and like all energy, it must obey natural laws. Ignorance of those laws will bring disaster."⁴

His warnings were largely ignored by the medical establishment.

By 1902, Clarence Dally's condition had deteriorated catastrophically. His left hand was amputated. Then four fingers from his right hand. Then his left arm at the elbow. Then at the shoulder. Then his right arm. On October 2, 1904, he died of cancer at age 39—the first known American killed by radiation exposure.⁵

Edison was horrified. He publicly abandoned all X-ray research, stating: "Don't talk to me about X-rays; I am afraid of them."⁶

But Edison's horror didn't stop anyone else. By 1904, the dangers of X-ray exposure had been documented for eight years. Hundreds of early radiologists and technicians were developing "X-ray hands"—chronic dermatitis, ulcers, cancers. The warnings were published in medical journals, discussed at conferences, impossible to miss for anyone paying attention.

And yet the public fascination only grew.

Just as X-ray warnings were being ignored, another discovery was captivating the world. In 1898, Marie Skłodowska Curie and her husband Pierre, working in a cramped Parisian shed, isolated two new elements from tons of pitchblende ore: polonium (named for Marie's native Poland) and radium—an element hundreds of times more radioactive than uranium, glowing with its own eerie blue-green light.⁷

Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in 1903, then the first person to win two Nobel Prizes in different sciences (Chemistry in 1911). Radium seemed to promise unlimited energy, miracle cures, a glorious atomic future.

Marie Curie would die in 1934 from aplastic anemia—her bone marrow destroyed by decades of exposure to the very element she discovered. Her daughter Irène, who followed her into radioactive research and won her own Nobel Prize in 1935, would die of leukemia in 1956. Two generations, both killed by radiation.³⁴

But in 1898, those deaths were decades away. The warnings came early, but they were cautious, not urgent. Marie and Pierre Curie themselves handled radium carefully. Ernest Rutherford—the physicist who would win the Nobel Prize in 1908 for his work on radioactive decay—warned colleagues to handle radioactive materials with care. Yet they didn't yet grasp—or perhaps didn't want to grasp—the full extent of chronic exposure risks.⁸

The public certainly didn't want to hear it. Radium became a miracle substance, added to everything: "Radithor" radium water marketed as a health tonic, radium toothpaste, radium face creams, radium butter advertised as "energized." Wealthy patients paid to sit in abandoned uranium mines breathing radon gas as arthritis "therapy."⁹

In 1917, the United States Radium Corporation opened dial-painting studios to produce luminous watch faces for soldiers. Young women—hired at elite wages, three times what factory workers earned—painted watch dials with radium-infused paint. The work seemed glamorous, patriotic, well-paid. To create fine points for tiny numerals, supervisors instructed them to shape their brushes with their lips: "Lip, dip, paint."¹⁰

The women sat in department store windows demonstrating their delicate craft for crowds. The studios shimmered with radium dust that settled in their hair and on their skin. They literally glowed when they left work—"ghost girls" who wore their best dresses to the factory so the fabric would shimmer at dance halls. Some painted their teeth and fingernails for luminous smiles.¹¹

By 1922, they began dying. Mollie Maggia's jaw disintegrated, glowing faintly in the dark. The companies claimed it was syphilis, claimed the women had poor hygiene, claimed anything but radium poisoning.¹²

But industrial hygienists like Alice Hamilton had been warning since the 1910s about chemical and radioactive exposure in factories.¹³ And in 1925, Dr. Harrison Martland, medical examiner in New Jersey, proved definitively that radium had lodged in the dial painters' bones, causing fatal anemia and cancers. His work was a major turning point—undeniable proof that radiation could be lethal even in small doses over time.¹⁴

By 1927, more than 50 young women had died. The 1928 lawsuit by the "Radium Girls" established that workers could sue corporations for occupational disease—a landmark in labor law.¹⁵

And yet radium products continued to be marketed to the public throughout the 1930s. Eben Byers, a wealthy industrialist, drank 1,400 bottles of Radithor between 1928 and 1931. His jaw literally fell off before he died in 1932. The Wall Street Journal headline read: "The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off."¹⁶

The warnings were there. The bodies were piling up. And still, radiation remained seductive.

This is the world into which the shoe-fitting fluoroscope was born.

By 1919, when Dr. Jacob Lowe filed his patent for a shoe-fitting fluoroscope, X-ray dangers had been documented for 23 years. Clarence Dally had been dead for 15 years. Dr. Rollins's warnings were 18 years old. Hundreds of physicians and technicians had developed radiation injuries. The evidence was overwhelming, published, undeniable.¹⁷

Lowe had used fluoroscopy during World War I to examine wounded soldiers' feet without removing their boots. After the war, he saw commercial potential. His patent application claimed that shoe merchants could "positively assure customers that they need never wear ill-fitting boots and shoes."¹⁸

The logic seemed sound on the surface: children's feet grow rapidly, proper fit matters. But here's what's crucial to understand—this was never about medical necessity. Shoe fitting had worked perfectly well for centuries without X-rays. The two-dimensional view from above couldn't assess arch support, heel fit, or comfort any better than trained hands and eyes.

As a 1952 article in Pediatrics would note: "Shoe salesmen interviewed in one study considered the machine a sales promotion device rather than a fitting aid."¹⁹

It was always about marketing. About spectacle. About the seductive promise that technology could do better than human judgment.

And the companies building these machines knew—or should have known—about the dangers. By the 1920s, as shoe fluoroscopes began appearing in stores, the medical community had established radiation safety protocols. Lead shielding was standard in hospitals. Exposure limits were being discussed. The technology to build safe X-ray machines existed.

But safe machines were expensive. They required shielding, timing mechanisms, trained operators, regulatory oversight. It was cheaper—and more profitable—to build unshielded wooden cabinets with exposed X-ray tubes and put them in shoe stores operated by untrained salespeople.

By the mid-1940s, an estimated 10,000 machines were operating in the United States alone, with thousands more in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.²⁰ Milwaukee became the manufacturing center, with the X-Ray Shoe Fitter Corporation and Adrian Company producing thousands of units at about $2,000 each—a substantial but worthwhile investment, manufacturers promised.

The design was consistent: a wooden cabinet about four feet tall with an X-ray tube mounted in the base. Customers inserted their feet into a slot, standing directly on or just above the X-ray source. Three viewing ports at the top allowed customer, parent, and salesman to simultaneously observe the glowing green skeleton through the shoe.

The machines had no timers. No safety interlocks. No shielding. No mechanism to track or limit exposures. No training requirements for operators.

The marketing was relentless. Advertisements showed happy mothers and children: "X-Ray Shoe Fitting Eliminates Guesswork!" "Kiddies love it!" And children did love it—what child wouldn't want to see their own bones?²¹

Operating manuals advised retailers: "We would suggest that you center the machine in the store so that it will be equally accessible from any point. Of course, it should face the ladies' and children's departments by virtue of the heavier sales in these departments."²²

Always children.

Parents genuinely believed they were being responsible. The "scientific motherhood" movement pressured women to embrace modern technology in child-rearing. Using X-rays for proper shoe fit seemed prudent, progressive, caring.

But what about the warnings? Why didn't parents know?

Because the warnings never reached them. The medical journals documenting radiation dangers weren't sold at newsstands. The regulatory agencies that might have banned these machines didn't exist yet—the FDA had limited authority, occupational safety laws were minimal, consumer protection was nearly non-existent. There was no requirement to test products for safety before bringing them to market.

And the industries had no incentive to publicize risks. The shoe fluoroscope manufacturers certainly weren't going to put warning labels on their $2,000 machines. The retailers weren't going to tell customers their "scientific fitting" device was dangerous. The trade publications defended the machines vigorously.

Meanwhile, the scientific warnings continued—and continued to be ignored.

In 1946, after decades of documented injuries, the American Standards Association finally established what they considered "safe standards" for fluoroscope use: limiting foot exposure to 2 roentgens per 5-second exposure, with children restricted to 12 exposures annually.²³

But these standards were voluntary, rarely enforced, and widely ignored. The machines had no mechanism to track exposures. There was no licensing requirement, no operator training, no regulatory oversight. A weekend employee could operate a fluoroscope with zero instruction beyond "flip this switch."

In 1948, a scientific study concluded unequivocally: "The fluoroscopic method of fitting shoes is of dubious value and involves a definite, though admittedly small, radiation hazard. With adequate protection for all persons involved, the machines might be used without great hazard, but no such protection is in general use."²⁴

Translation: These machines don't work and they're dangerous. They could be made safer but no one is doing it.

The response from the shoe industry? Keep selling them.

Then came the 1950 survey that should have ended everything. Researchers found that shoe-fitting fluoroscopes emitted a median radiation output of 40 roentgens per minute—with some machines reaching as high as 107 roentgens per minute.²⁵

To put this in perspective:

A child trying on shoes throughout the year could easily accumulate 20 or more exposures—more than 260 roentgens annually, fifty times the modern occupational exposure limit.²⁶

For salespeople operating the machines 20-30 times per day, five or six days a week, the exposure was catastrophic.

The casualties became impossible to ignore. In 1950, a shoe saleswoman who had operated a fluoroscope 10-20 times daily for ten years developed severe radiation dermatitis. She routinely placed her hands directly into the X-ray beam to squeeze shoes during fitting. That same year, another case: a shoe model who demonstrated shoes for hours each day developed radiation burns so severe that her leg required amputation below the knee.²⁷

These weren't the first casualties. They were simply the ones that got documented in medical journals. How many salespeople developed "mysterious" cancers decades later? How many children's cumulative exposures contributed to leukemias and tumors that appeared in adulthood? We'll never know. No registry tracked exposures. No follow-up studies were conducted.

Even with overwhelming evidence, change came with agonizing slowness.

In 1925, Christina Jordan had warned about radiation dangers to shoe store clerks—32 years would pass before the first state ban.²⁸

Pennsylvania became the first state to ban shoe-fitting fluoroscopes in 1957—62 years after Röntgen's discovery, 56 years after Rollins's published warnings, 53 years after Clarence Dally's death, 38 years after the first patent.²⁹

Other states followed gradually: New York and Massachusetts in 1958, New Jersey and Wisconsin in 1959. By 1970, 33 states had banned the machines. But 17 states had not.

The last operational shoe-fitting fluoroscope in the United States wasn't unplugged until 1981—at a department store in Madison, West Virginia.³⁰

Think about that timeline. Eighty-six years after Röntgen's discovery. Eighty years after the first published warnings. Seventy-seven years after the first documented death. Sixty-two years after the patent.

Why did it take so long?

Because there was no federal regulatory authority that could ban them nationwide. Because consumer protection laws were weak or non-existent. Because the industry fought every regulation. Because the machines were already installed in thousands of stores, and no one wanted to force retailers to absorb the loss.

But most of all? Because the public loved them. Parents wanted them. Children begged to use them. The machines represented progress, modernity, responsible parenting. Questioning them seemed backward, anti-science, paranoid.

The same arguments we hear today about controversial technologies: Everyone's using it. The experts say it's safe. The benefits outweigh the theoretical risks. You can't stop progress.

The shoe fluoroscope didn't exist in isolation. It was part of a broader cultural moment when radiation—from any source—seemed miraculous and safe.

While children stood on X-ray machines in shoe stores, Las Vegas was hosting "Dawn Bomb Parties." Between 1951 and 1963, the government conducted 100 atmospheric nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site, just 65 miles from Las Vegas. Casinos hosted viewing parties where guests drank "Atomic Cocktails" and watched mushroom clouds. Hotels advertised rooms with the best views. In 1957, showgirl Lee Merlin posed in a white bikini with a cotton mushroom cloud affixed to it—"Miss Atomic Bomb."³¹

Families drove into the desert for picnics. Children collected radioactive fallout as souvenirs.

Government officials assured everyone it was safe. The "downwinders"—communities in the fallout path—would later develop cancers at extraordinary rates. But in the moment, questioning the safety of atomic testing was considered unpatriotic.³²

In 1950, the A.C. Gilbert Company released a children's toy containing actual uranium ore samples and three radiation sources including polonium-210. The "Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory" encouraged ten-year-olds to "play hide and seek with the gamma ray source." It was certified "Safe!" by Oak Ridge Laboratories, part of the Atomic Energy Commission.³³

This was the world that made shoe fluoroscopes seem reasonable.

The patterns repeat.

In 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified radiofrequency EMF as "possibly carcinogenic" to humans. Yet 5G networks are being deployed globally. In 2017, over 390 scientists and medical doctors appealed to the European Union for a moratorium on 5G deployment until proper safety evaluation could be conducted. The appeal noted "a rapidly accumulating body of laboratory studies documenting disruptive effects" but "an almost total lack of high-quality epidemiological studies." The request was not acknowledged. The rollout continued.³⁵ ³⁶

Industry representatives assure us that exposure levels are safe, that the science is settled, that benefits outweigh theoretical risks. Scientists raising concerns are dismissed as alarmist.

Sound familiar?

The shoe fluoroscope teaches us that "we don't know yet" is not the same as "it's safe." It teaches us that regulatory agencies can be captured by industry. It teaches us that "everyone's using it" is not evidence of safety. It teaches us that by the time definitive proof of harm emerges, decades of damage may be done.

The warnings are always there.

The question is: will we listen this time?

Marie Curie died in 1934, her body so radioactive it had to be sealed in lead. Today, more than ninety years later, her laboratory notebooks are still so contaminated they're stored in lead-lined boxes. Researchers who want to examine them must sign liability waivers and wear protective clothing.

The woman has been dead for nine decades, but her possessions still glow with invisible menace.

Radiation never forgets.

And neither should we.

1895 - Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X-rays (November 8)
1896 - Nikola Tesla warns of X-ray dangers; Thomas Edison demonstrates fluoroscope
1898 - Marie and Pierre Curie discover radium
1901 - Dr. William Rollins publishes systematic warnings about X-ray dangers (ignored)
1904 - Clarence Dally dies from X-ray exposure; Edison abandons X-ray research
1910s - Alice Hamilton and other industrial hygienists warn about radioactive exposure
1917 - US Radium Corporation begins dial painting operations
1919 - Dr. Jacob Lowe patents shoe-fitting fluoroscope (23 years after first warnings)
1920s - Shoe fluoroscopes enter commercial use; radium products peak
1922 - Mollie Maggia, radium dial painter, dies
1925 - Dr. Harrison Martland proves radium poisoning in dial painters; Christina Jordan warns about shoe store clerk exposure
1927 - More than 50 dial painters dead
1928 - Radium Girls lawsuit establishes workers' rights
1932 - Eben Byers dies after drinking radium water
1934 - Marie Curie dies from radiation-induced aplastic anemia
1940s - Peak era: 10,000+ shoe fluoroscopes operating in US stores
1946 - American Standards Association sets voluntary "safe" standards (widely ignored)
1948 - Scientific study declares fluoroscopes "of dubious value" and dangerous
1950 - Survey finds fluoroscopes emitting up to 107 R/min; documented amputations
1951 - Nevada atomic testing begins; Las Vegas promotes "atomic tourism"
1956 - Irène Joliot-Curie (Marie Curie's daughter) dies of leukemia
1957 - Pennsylvania first state to ban shoe fluoroscopes (62 years after X-ray discovery)
1963 - Partial Test Ban Treaty ends atmospheric nuclear testing
1970 - 33 states have banned shoe fluoroscopes; 17 have not
1981 - Last shoe fluoroscope unplugged in US (86 years after X-ray discovery)
2004 - Basal-cell carcinoma case linked to childhood shoe fluoroscope exposure
2011 - IARC classifies radiofrequency EMF as "possibly carcinogenic"
2017 - 390+ scientists appeal to EU for 5G moratorium (not acknowledged)

Duffin, Jacalyn, and Charles R.R. Hayter. "Baring the Sole: The Rise and Fall of the Shoe-fitting Fluoroscope." Isis 91, no. 2 (June 2000): 260-82.

Lewis, L., and P.E. Caplan. "The Shoe-Fitting Fluoroscope as a Radiation Hazard." California Medicine 72, no. 1 (January 1950): 26-30.

Williams, C.R. "Radiation exposures from the use of shoe-fitting fluoroscopes." New England Journal of Medicine 241, no. 9 (September 1, 1949): 333-5.

Rollins, William. "Notes on X-Light." Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (1901).

Moore, Kate. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2017.

Oak Ridge Associated Universities. "Shoe-Fitting Fluoroscope." Health Physics Museum. https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/shoe-fitting-fluoroscope/

Caufield, Catherine. Multiple Exposures: Chronicles of the Radiation Age. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Hardell, Lennart, and Michael Carlberg. "Health risks from radiofrequency radiation, including 5G, should be assessed by experts with no conflicts of interest." Oncology Letters 20, no. 4 (2020): 15.

Welsome, Eileen. The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War. New York: Dial Press, 1999.

Mullner, Ross. Deadly Glow: The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy. American Public Health Association, 1999.

Curie, Eve. Madame Curie: A Biography. Translated by Vincent Sheean. New York: Doubleday, 1937.

¹ Röntgen's original paper and contemporary accounts of his wife's reaction. ² Tesla's 1896 correspondence and published warnings about X-ray exposure. ³ Edison's fluoroscope development documented in patent records and contemporary sources. ⁴ Rollins, William. "Notes on X-Light." Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (1901). ⁵ Medical records and contemporary documentation of Clarence Dally's death (1904). ⁶ Edison's quoted statement from various contemporary sources following Dally's death. ⁷ Curie, Marie. "Rayons émis par les composés de l'uranium et du thorium," Comptes Rendus (1898). ⁸ Early correspondence and warnings from Rutherford and the Curies about handling radioactive materials. ⁹ Historical records of radium product marketing and radon health mines. ¹⁰ Moore, The Radium Girls (2017); US Radium Corporation training manuals and worker testimonies. ¹¹ Contemporary newspaper accounts and worker testimonies from the 1920s. ¹² Medical records and death certificate of Mollie Maggia (1922). ¹³ Hamilton, Alice. Industrial hygiene publications from the 1910s-1920s. ¹⁴ Martland, Harrison. "The Occurrence of Malignancy in Radioactive Persons." American Journal of Cancer (1931). ¹⁵ Court records from Fryer v. US Radium Corporation (1928); death toll documentation. ¹⁶ Wall Street Journal coverage (April 1932) and Radithor case documentation. ¹⁷ Lowe patent application, US Patent Office (1919). ¹⁸ Patent application text quoted from Lowe's 1919 filing. ¹⁹ Article in Pediatrics (1952) evaluating shoe fitting methods. ²⁰ Sales and distribution data from Duffin and Hayter, Isis (2000). ²¹ Advertisement reproductions in various historical collections. ²² Operating manual quoted in Wisconsin Historical Society collection. ²³ American Standards Association safety code (1946). ²⁴ Williams, New England Journal of Medicine (1949). ²⁵ Lewis and Caplan survey data, California Medicine (1950). ²⁶ Exposure calculations from various medical physics studies. ²⁷ Case studies documented in Lewis and Caplan (1950). ²⁸ Jordan letter to The Times (London), 1925. ²⁹ Pennsylvania state health department records (1957). ³⁰ Historical records, West Virginia Department of Health (1981). ³¹ Las Vegas News Bureau archives; "Miss Atomic Bomb" photograph (1957). ³² Documentation of downwinder cancer rates and fallout exposure studies. ³³ Gilbert Company catalog and product documentation (1950-1951); Oak Ridge certification. ³⁴ Nobel Prize records and medical documentation for Marie Curie and Irène Joliot-Curie. ³⁵ International Agency for Research on Cancer, WHO classification (2011). ³⁶ European Union 5G Appeal signed by scientists and physicians (2017).

This Obscurarium special edition illuminates one of history's darkest chapters—when warnings were ignored, when commerce trumped caution, and when the promise of progress blinded us to invisible danger. May we learn from these mistakes. May the victims never be forgotten. And may we ask harder questions about what we're being told is safe today.

— The Obscurarium

What's Next in Obscurarium? What bizarre historical phenomenon should we investigate next? Drop us a line at [email protected].

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