The Internet Time Machine

Near the end of a walking tour of downtown Millburn, with the fourth grades from South Mountain School, one of the students asked where the historical society acquired all the photos we had been looking at along the walk. I explained that many of them were donated to the society and many of them were scanned from postcards purchased online. The fascinated student pressed for more details as he was amazed that so many early photos of Millburn could be acquired so readily online.

In fact, Millburn and Short Hills ephemera appears online with such regularity that the uncommon becomes commonplace. Looking for a salesman’s sample kit for Hartshorn’s roller window shades? There it is. Looking for memorabilia from Short Hills' Pitcher & Manda’s US Nurseries? There is a collection of medals from the late 1800s, won by them for their exotic and unique plants. Looking for early memorabilia from the Chanticler? There’s a very early sugar cube in a Chanticler wrapper.

 In the course of research on an unrelated topic, a 1950 magazine featured an ad that stopped me dead as I turned pages. I looked at the flower-shaped salt and pepper shakers (see scan here) and muttered out loud to myself that I would love to be able to just pick up the phone and order those 1950 relics from that store. An idea slowly emerged and I put down the magazine, went to the computer, and Googled ‘flower salt pepper shakers.’ Within just a minute the exact same shakers appeared in a popular online auction site and within three days they arrived here in the mail here…all just as quickly as that 1950 order would have taken place.

 Time travel is at your fingertips right now.