History of Valentine’s Day

On February 14, Americans celebrate love and friendship by exchanging cards, flowers, and candy. Although the origins of Valentine’s Day are murky, ancient Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia, a spring festival, on the fifteenth of February. Like so many holidays, a Christian gloss was added to the pagan fete when the holiday moved to the fourteenth of February—the saint day associated with several early Christian martyrs named Valentine.

THE ST. VALENTINE RUSH WAS GREAT.

(February 14, 1907, The Johnstown Daily Republican)

Many Pretty but Only a Few of the Grotesque Missives Sent from the Johnstown Postoffice Today.

The Queen of Love. New York: Haasis & Lubrecht, c1878. Popular Graphic Arts. Prints & Photographs Division

St. Valentine is still worshipped in Johnstown. If any have doubts of the statement a visit to the Johnstown postoffice yesterday and today would have convinced the most skeptical.

For hours there was a throng of patient waiters before the stamp window holding dainty missives in the hand waiting for the verdict of the deliberately and unenthusiastic and unemotional stamp clerk as to what amount of postage Uncle Sam demanded to carry their message of love to its destination.

All ages and conditions were represented in the throng and the valentines together with the ordinary business mail, kept accumulating till all the local office force was up to the neck in mail matter and still the letters and packages were pouring in.

In the early evening hours there was another rush and the impatient ones were leaving the postoffice and seeking other outside places where stamps could be obtained.

By 8 o’clock last evening there was an accumulation of mail matter which it was estimated would take hours to distribute and start on its journey. Hence those who waited till the night before St. Valentine’s Day to send their tokens of love need not be disappointed if their letters and valentines do not reach the loved one till the day after.

(NYS Historic Newspapers)

Valentinus. In Liber Chronicarum [The Nuremberg Chronicle], compiled by Hartmann Schedel. Germany: A. Koberger, July, 1493. World Digital Library. Bavarian State Library

The romance we associate with Valentine’s Day may spring from the medieval belief that birds select their mates on February 14.

During the Middle Ages, lovers recited verse or prose to one another in honor of the day. The Nuremberg Chronicle (published in 1493) is believed to contain the first in-print mention of Saint Valentine, though his role as patron saint of lovers was not mentioned.

Handmade valentines, probably the first greeting cards, appeared in the sixteenth century. Mass production of cards began as early as 1800. Initially hand-tinted by factory workers, by the early twentieth century even fancy lace and ribbon-strewn cards were created by machine. (Library of Congress)