Dr. Scholl: From Humble Beginnings

by William A. Rossi

COPYRIGHT 1998 Fairchild Publications Inc.

Perhaps no name in the footwear industry has had such long and prominent staying power as Dr. Scholl. He converted a niche business into a canyon.

William Mathius Scholl was born on a farm in La Porte, Ill., in 1882. At age 18, he left the farm for Chicago, where he got a job in Ruppert's Shoe Store, which specialized in comfort and orthopedic shoes.

Scholl's hands-on experience with customers complaining of foot ills soon inspired his "calling" — a mission to put America and the world back on its feet.

While working at Ruppert's, he enrolled as an evening student at Illinois Medical College (later called Loyola Medical School). After graduation, instead of starting a medical practice, he established his own small firm in a Chicago loft in 1904.

The company's first product was a metal-spring arch support, which he called the Foot-Eazer. It was to become the flagship product in his ever-expanding line for many years. His first year sales: $1,600.

He began developing a steady stream of other foot-care products. Among them was a doughnut-shaped, stick-on corn pad called the Zino Pad ("put one on, the pain is gone"). Hundreds of millions of them would be sold over the years.

He continued to develop "quick-cure" products for bunions, hammer toes, ingrown nails, sore heels, metatarsal pain and a host of other foot ills, developing almost 1,000 of them over his long career. Among his innovations were the first Elastic Hosiery (1947), the first cushion insole inserts (1948), and the Exercise Sandal (1948), which annually sold about six million pairs.

In the beginning, young Dr. Scholl visited scores of shoe stores, carrying his bag of samples and lecturing retailers about the public's desperate need for foot care. A master showman, he dressed in stiff winged collars, vest, tailcoat and striped trousers — the common attire for physicians. With his showmanship, he unfailingly walked away with a substantial order.

Dr. Scholl's fledgling company soon had branches in Canada and Europe, later reaching as far as Australia and New Zealand. In the 1920s, Scholl created the slogan, "When your feet hurt, you hurt all over," which won instant empathetic response the world over.

In the 1930s, he launched Foot Health Week, an annual event that continued for a half-century and won him millions of customers in the 20,000 participating shoe stores. Long before today's "walkathons," Scholl was promoting walking contests in hundreds of cities and towns.

Scholl was the epitome of the born salesman. On one of his annual world trips, he met and visited with Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. After a few minutes of conversation, Scholl reached into his bag, drew out a pair of arch supports and fitted them to the Kaiser, who later wrote to thank Scholl for his "gesture of grateful relief." It was even rumored that when Scholl first visited the Colosseum in Rome, he asked for permission to raise the arches.

In the 1920s, when Paavo Nurmi, "the Flying Finn," was setting Olympic and other world records for his running feats, Scholl convinced Nurmi that by "training" his feet with Scholl arch supports, he could run even faster. As a gesture of courtesy, Nurmi tried wearing the supports for a few days. Scholl then spread the word internationally that his arch supports were playing a significant role in Nurmi's stellar performances.

It was inevitable that Scholl was to add shoes to his list of "remedial" products. The first Dr. Scholl Foot Comfort Shop was opened in the 1920s. By the 1950s, there were hundreds of such stores throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and South America.

The firm even had its own shoe factories. The shoes produced in these factories were much the same as the many other "corrective" shoes on the market. But they had one advantage: the Scholl label, which implied that they were more "scientifically advanced," as the company advertised. In the stores, "free foot examinations by foot and shoe experts" were provided.

By 1955, the Dr. Scholl Co. had become a small empire, ruler of the burgeoning over-the-counter foot aids business. The company was now operating 10 manufacturing plants in the United States, plus six overseas, in addition to more than 500 Foot Comfort Shops, and selling Scholl products in 57 countries. The Dr. Scholl name was rated the third best-known brand name in the world. In the 1970s, the company was listed among the "Fortune 500."

But despite all his celebrity and accumulation of wealth, Scholl himself lived humbly, almost ascetically. His main residence for 50 years was at the Illinois Athletic Club on Michigan Avenue in the Windy City, where he occupied a one-room apartment with a bathroom down the hall.

Scholl never married, perhaps because he was traveling around the world six months out of the year. He also wrote several textbooks about the foot, and he started the Illinois College of Podiatric Medicine, home of the world's largest foot clinic.

When he died in 1968 at the age of 85, Time cited Scholl as "the man who made the world foot-conscious." However, despite his contributions to American foot-health awareness, the hostile podiatrists never gave Scholl so much as a plaque.

In 1979, the Dr. Scholl Company was sold to pharmaceutical firm Schering-Plough, which shredded much of what Scholl had built. The shoe division was sold to Brown Shoe Co., which now sells the Scholl shoes to discount stores.

In the 1990s, the Scholl Exercise Sandal became rejuvenated as a cult shoe. The "sandal" was actually a thick wooden clog with a rocker bottom to aid step propulsion, because the foot itself can't flex in walking.

Dr. Scholl, like Barnum, remains an American institution. He was a remarkable mix of doctor, inventor, missionary and evangelist. While he did much good with his philanthropic ways, his success has inspired a horde of would-be imitators that, over the years, have made similar promises to relieve, remedy or cure whatever ails the feet. Scholl founded what has now become an estimated $1.6 billion industry at retail.

Dr. Scholl's phenomenal success in creating a foot-conscious public was largely responsible for two major follow-up developments: the "corrective" and high-tech shoe businesses, which promised miracles and high performance, respectively.

Which proves that wherever gullible consumers are gathered, a Barnum is sure to be found among them.