UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 19, Page 3
February 13, 1992
Valentine's Day; The beginnings of 'roses are red, voilets are blue'
by George E. Miller
Officially, Feb. 14 is called St. Valentine's Day, although
increasingly the "St." has been disappearing. That secularization
seems appropriate because, although somewhere between two and eight
early Christian martyrs were named St. Valentine, the origins and
customs of the day probably have nothing to do with Christianity.
Origins
The exact origins of Valentine's Day are lost, and scholars
offer a series of competing possibilities. One often-suggested
antecedent, for example, is the Roman Spring festival of
Lupercalia, which took place Feb. 15-a festival that stressed both
fertility and youth. It was a common practice for Christianity to
deal with pagan beliefs, celebrations and superstitions by
re-naming and Christianizing them. In this process, the names of
saints were commonly attached to pagan festivals and holidays.
St. Valentine's Day might be just such an example. At least
two saints named Valentine are associated with Feb. 14, and it
would have been an easy matter to erase pagan associations by
linking the festival to a saint's day.
During the Middle Ages, Feb. 14 was thought to be the day on
which birds began to mate. The English poet Chaucer refers to this
belief in one of his poems,
"For this was on Saint Valentine's day
When every fowl cometh there to choose his mate."
Not surprisingly, literary traditions linked together birds
and human lovers, and choosing a Valentine was analogous to
becoming engaged.
Be my Valentine
Equally old is the custom of drawing the name of one's
Valentine. 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.
Sometimes, of course, such arrangements ended in a bethrothal.
Unless the drawing was "rigged," however, not everyone would have
been anxious to submit to "chance." Nevertheless, the custom was
apparently widespread even as late as the 17th century. A related
custom held that the first unmarried person encountered on
Valentine's Day became one's Valentine.
Valentine gifts
It has long been the tradition of giving 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 an unspoken-for person
as his or her Valentine), the celebration, and gift-giving that
accompanied it, sometimes proved troublesome and often expensive.
Although some Valentine presents were quite costly, others
were more moderate. Gloves were a common gift for a young woman as
were, curiously enough, garters. In an age when reticence or
modesty were mixed with suggestiveness, one writer sent along the
following verse:
"Blush not, my fair, at what I send,
'Tis a fond present from a friend.
These garters, made of silken twine,
Were fancied by your Valentine.
The motto, dictated by love,
Is simple- "Think on what's above."
The Valentine greeting
At some point, the idea of giving a gift got crossed with the
drawing of slips of paper on which was written a name and the
writing of some appropriate verse message, and the written
Valentine greeting was born. Its origins are traced to roughly the
middle of the 18th century.
The cost of sending a Valentine through the mail was initially
prohibitive. Besides, of course, one's Valentine was likely to be
close at hand. Commonly, Valentines were delivered or discreetly
slipped under the door. In the United States, Valentines began to
be more commonly sent by mail in the 1840s when postage rates
dropped to more reasonable levels.
The history of the forms that Valentines took is complicated
and is traced in great detail in two books worth examining: Ruth
Webb Lee's A History of Valentines (New York: Studio, 1952) and
Frank Staff's The Valentine & Its Origins (New York: Praeger,
1969). Both books are available in the Morris Library.
One generalization is safe, however. Prior to the 1840s,
Valentines were made by hand, that is, by the lover's own hand.
Many early handmade Valentines were elaborately constructed-
ornate lettering or meticulous script, coloring, cut-out designs,
intricate puzzle shapes, pin-pricked designs. The verses that
accompanied these love tokens were frequently the cliches 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.) By the
early 1800s, a counter tradition had developed in the Valentine-the
rude or comic Valentine, sometimes referred to as the "vinegar"
Valentine.
The handmade Valentine was quickly 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 bookstore 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. Howland's designs were often
intricate and sometimes commanded very high prices. Esther Howland
sold her business about 1880 to George C. Whitney who, with a
brother, founded the Whitney Manufacturing Co.
The fashions in Valentines changed from year to year. Perfume
sachets were added; woven silk designs were attached; silk fringes
were attached to the card's edges; designs were no longer engraved
but were now chromo-lithographed. By the 1890s, the fashion was
mechanical or "stand-up" Valentines. Carefully folded flat (and
often boxed), these Valentines opened up into elaborate
three-dimensional designs, often assuming the shape of a particular
object-ships or automobiles, for example. This type of Valentine
was popular in the United States through about 1905. Interestingly,
the Valentine remained more popular in the United States than it
did, for example, in England.
Valentine postcards
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.
The public's taste for elaborately printed Valentine designs
was evident even in Tuck's list. The flat-printed (or even the
embossed) color designs were cheap; they were to retail for 1,2 or
3 cents each. Their price was a reflection of Tuck's printing
costs. At the high end, however, Tuck included a group of expensive
postcards, intended for retail for 15 cents each, each of which was
sold in a transparent envelope.
Folded messages
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.
Americans remain intensely loyal to Valentine's Day. Along
with Mother's Day, it is the busiest day for the American
restaurant business. As a quick trip to a local card store or to a
mall will show, Valentine's Day is big business. On the other hand,
Valentine's Day is still a nice idea. Most of us-men and women
alike- don't have enough romance in our lives.
Miller, associate chairperson and professor of the Department of
English and director of the Writing Program, is a collector of
American paper ephemera. This article is excerpted from one
appearing this month in the Postcard Collector.