In a word, the Fulton History (AKA Old Fulton New York Postcards) website is a marvel. Created and maintained by one man, Tom Tryniski, this newspaper database has been in existence since 1999 when Tom began scanning microfilmed newspapers. Currently, his database has over 50 million digitized newspaper pages that are searchable by anyone, anywhere.
It initially began with newspapers close to Tom’s Fulton, New York home. It expanded to include hundreds of titles from New York State. In the last few years, more newspapers were added from other states in the US.
The website can appear eclectic but is highly usable once you get the hang of it. It does have its downtime, unfortunately, but that is typical because of the handy work of hackers.
Although there are companies and sites that have larger overall numbers of titles from many collections, the Fulton site is the largest free, single online database in the US. It’s amazing to think that Chronicling America, the Library of Congress’ site, has only 40% of the number of pages as the Fulton site.
Don’t think that the site has only New York newspapers. There are about 1,000 New York titles, but there are hundreds of titles now from other states.
To access the site, go to FultonHistory.com/Fulton.html
Because of the persistent hacking issues mentioned above, you will need to set up an account. It is free, and it is easy to register.
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