Valentine's Day Greeting Cards
This collection of 99 Valentine's Day greeting cards provides a glimpse into the way Americans have shared their feelings of love and affection every February 14th from 1840 through 1980.
Valentine Designs for Everyone
The figures in the Valentine's Day cards gallery include everything from men, women, boys and girls to Cupid and cherubs. One card has two masked, gun-toting Cupids robbing a woman. Many cards feature animals: bears, dogs, cats, donkeys, horses, birds and swans. Of course, hearts, flowers, ribbons and butterflies appear in almost all of the Valentines. A few cards have fruit or vegetable themes: beets, peaches and plums. Some cards add movement to their appeal, having hinged parts fastened with eyelets. One card has a stick of "Black Jack Gum" still attached. Several have multiple parts held together with cords, and others have many layers to produce a three-dimensional look. A selection of inexpensive children's bulk Valentines from several decades take the viewer back to elementary school days. Also of interest are the parts of a kit used to create custom Valentines by the purchaser.
The Origins of St. Valentine's Day
The exact beginning of St. Valentine's Day is in dispute, but the most popular story tells of a Roman priest, Valentine of Rome, who defied the order of Roman Emperor Claudius II to stop performing marriage ceremonies for young men whom he wished to recruit into the army. He believed that married men did not make good soldiers. He had Valentine arrested and incarcerated. While in prison, Valentine became friends with the blind daughter of his jailer. Before his execution in A.D. 269, he healed her blindness and wrote her a note, which he signed "from your Valentine."
Pope Gelasius established St. Valentine's Day in A.D. 500 to replace Lupercalia, a pagan fertility rite celebrated in Rome. Pope Paul VI removed it from the Roman calendar of saints in 1969, but still permitted the religious observance.
The first association of Valentine's Day with romantic love was in a 1382 poem by Geoffrey Chaucer to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia. In A.D. 1415 the Duke of Orleans wrote a poem to his wife while being held in the Tower of London. This is the oldest known Valentine in existence today. The popular celebration of Valentine's Day began in the 17th century in Great Britain. By the middle of the 18th century, people began exchanging small tokens and notes. By 1800, printed cards began to replace written letters.