'Roses are red, violets are blue.' How did it all start?

Postcard valentine, circa 1908

3:53 p.m., Feb. 12, 2004--George Miller, professor of English, teaches courses in 17th-century British literature. He has published six books and some 200 articles in academic journals, popular magazines and historical society journals and newsletters. He also is a collector of American paper ephemera, or a wide range of minor, everyday documents, most intended for one-time or short-term use, including the Valentine’s Day card.

Q: What is the origin of Valentine’s Day?

A: The exact origins of Valentine's Day are lost, but scholars
offer a series of possibilities such as the Roman spring festival of Lupercalia, which took place Feb. 15. It was a festival that stressed both fertility and youth. It was a common practice for Christianity to
deal with pagan beliefs, celebrations and superstitions by
renaming and Christianizing them. The names of saints were commonly attached to pagan festivals and holidays.

Q: When and why did people start sending valentine's cards?

A: Supposedly, young women put their names on slips of paper and placed those slips in a box. Each young man drew a slip and the two became valentines, often for as much as a year. At some point, from the drawing of slips of paper with a name and an appropriate verse message, the written valentine greeting was born. Its origins are traced to roughly the middle of the 18th century.

Prior to the 1840s, valentines were made by hand, that is, by the lover's own hand. Many early handmade valentines were elaborately constructed with ornate lettering or meticulous script, coloring, cutout designs, intricate puzzle shapes, pinpricked designs. The verses that accompanied these love tokens were frequently the clichés of love. In fact, a number of books of ready-made valentine messages could be purchased for those who didn't want to trust their own verse-making abilities—ours is not the only time in which people choose to have someone else write their greeting messages.

The handmade valentine was replaced by the manufactured valentine, although most of these were actually assembled by hand at factories and workshops. This composite-type valentine, made by artfully arranging and then gluing down scraps and novelties, was first introduced into the United States in 1848 by Esther Howland, the daughter of the owner of a book and stationery store in Worchester, Mass. Howland's valentines were assembled by a group of young women she employed, and her shop—even in the 1850s—did as much as $50,000-$75,000 business in a year.

By the turn of the century, the valentine in the United States
was the postcard, and judging from the numbers and range that
survive, they were extremely popular. In 1909, Raphael Tuck & Sons, one publisher alone (and there were dozens of publishers of
postcards) advertised 564 different valentine postcards in 76
different sets or series. We all know, of course, where the valentine has gone since the passing of the postcard craze. In 1910, the Hallmark firm was established in Kansas City, Mo.; it wasn't long until the folded greeting, mailed in an envelope, displaced the postcard.

Q: When did gift giving begin?

A: It has long been the tradition to give gifts or love tokens on Valentine's Day. Originally, the man and woman exchanged presents, but, by the later 17th century, it was much more common for the man alone to give the gift. For a while in history, at least, one's valentine was not necessarily one's sweetheart (or one's spouse), and even married men and women could have valentines. In societies where names were drawn or where valentines were chosen or challenged, any man or woman could claim a single person as his or her valentine.

Article by Barbara Garrison

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