Today’s Valentine’s Day industry has grown from a greeting-card company’s dream to a boon for businesses of all kinds. The sentiment of Howland’s cards is about all that’s stayed the same since the latter part of the 19th century. Valentine's Day means big business for SMBs are still available for viewing by the public. Many of the cards made by Howland’s New England Valentine Co. The enterprising Howland is credited with starting the Valentine’s Day card industry in the United States, growing what started out as a small, homemade card business into a thriving enterprise that earned $100,000 in revenues annually. The European tradition of postmarking love letters in February allegedly traveled across the pond thanks to one Esther Howland, a native of Worcester, Mass., who graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1847. But, the British Library in London holds the oldest known surviving valentine, a poem composed in French in 1415 by Charles Duke of Orleans to his wife, which he sent while imprisoned in the Tower of London.Īnd lest one think that only incarcerated men were once capable of sending love notes, the British Library also possesses the oldest known valentine in the English language, a poem composed in 1477 by a woman named Margery Brews to her fickle fiancé. But the majority of historic valentines still in existence today came from European lovers in the Victorian period and were handmade and hand-printed monstrosities, quite unlike the mass-produced, and relatively slender, greeting cards of the current era. The poem specifically refers to February 14 as a day when birds and humans both go in search of mates.
That's when Chaucer wrote a poem called the Parliament of Foules, in which he links courtly love to a celebration of St. Geoffrey Chaucer, the medieval poet, may have invented the holiday around 1375. It was intended to cast evil spirits out of town, which then would welcome in health and fertility. But that had nothing to do with love, per se. To celebrate that holiday, you people smeared blood on their foreheads and ran through the villages wearing wolfskins. The day shares some history with a Bronze Age paqen Roman celebration called Lupercalia. The day was designated as the Feast of Saint Valentine by Pope Gelasius in 496 AD. There is enough confusion about the truth of his life and death that the Catholic Church discontinued liturgical veneration of him in 1969 yet, his name still remains among the lists of the saints. Valentine"), this temple priest was beheaded for helping Christian couples marry. Enamored with his jailor’s daughter, Valentine reportedly sent her a letter before his execution. Valentine of Rome (there are a dozen or so others also known as "St. While there’s some debate about who first sent a V-Day missive, some sources say the down-and-out Saint Valentine himself actually sent the first valentine. It’s generally accepted that the world has Saint Valentine to thank for what has become known as a "Hallmark holiday." But the stories behind the real first Valentine are more interesting than you might guess. Today's the day that some dread, others forget and still others can't wait to celebrate.