#8: An Old-Fashioned List

How cool is this nifty gadget? This metal contraption is an antique grocery list. Instead of writing a list by hand, someone had the novel idea of making a permanent list with handy tabs that shoppers could toggle back and forth. Even better, the whole list is alphabetized for easy reading. 

Someone posted this antique on Reddit, and the internet went wild. Historians think this list is from anywhere between the 1920s and ‘40s. It’s fascinating to look back and see what manufacturers assumed shoppers needed. From vague items like “jams” to oddly specific things like “catsup,” this list was definitely trying to be all-inclusive. We can’t help but wonder what shoppers did when they needed something that wasn’t on the list.