Be Mine: On Love and Collecting
This month, we look back at Valentine’s Day, from its earliest roots to shoebox valentines and sugar highs.
Image courtesy of Etsy seller AttysSproutVintage via Pinterest.
Valentine’s Day has come a long way since its murky beginnings. The name Valentine itself comes from one or perhaps several early Christian martyrs remembered in the Roman tradition. Legends vary. One tale describes a priest who defied Emperor Claudius II’s ban on marriage by performing weddings in secret. Another tells of a Valentine who healed his jailer’s daughter and signed her a tender note, “From your Valentine.” Whatever the truth, February 14 became associated with the memory of these martyrs in the 5th century, when the Catholic Church designated it as a feast day in their honor.
However, romance as we think of it in modern times did not arrive all at once. It was not until the Middle Ages that Valentine’s Day became linked with courtly love. History credits the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer with popularizing the day in the late 1300s when he wrote about birds choosing mates on St. Valentine’s Day. This poem connected February 14 with affairs of the heart.
By the 18th and 19th centuries, exchanging affectionate notes and simple tokens of love had become more common in England, and later in the United States—commercially printed cards embellished with verses and often humorous imagery replaced handmade keepsakes. The availability of a variety of curated cards, of course, set the stage for the classroom Valentine parties that those of us of a certain age remember today.
Before the allergy charts, food restrictions, and Pinterest-perfect goodie bags, Valentine’s Day in the classroom was a homemade kind of magic. We decorated old shoeboxes with paper doilies, stickers, and construction paper, carefully cutting a slot in the top for our Valentine haul. We brought in cards and candy hearts for every kid in class (even the ones who annoyed us), and sometimes, a special one for the person who didn’t know we’d been crushing on them all year.
The die-cut classroom valentines of the 60s and 70s were bright, kitschy, and filled with corny puns. Those of us who wished to maintain a modicum of grade school cool often chose themed popular cartoon character valentines like The Jetsons, The Flintstones, and Disney.
And of course, who could forget the classroom mothers who brought their scratch-made cupcake goodness to every school party, topped with cinnamon red hots for valentines, candy corn at Halloween, or Hershey Kisses at Christmas. These days, kids’ celebrations look a little different. There are allergy lists, no-sugar policies, and guidelines for every treat. Parents juggle food sensitivities and social sensitivities, yet teachers still somehow make it all work.
This issue naturally leans into the season of love. Within these pages, you’ll find vintage valentines, intimate lover’s eye portraits meant to be worn close to the heart, and an exploration of unusual valentines that don’t always fit our modern ideas of romance. In the sales reports, chocolate molds, romantic pulp illustrations, and scrimshaw love tokens carved by sailors thinking of home remind us just how many ways people have found to express affection, sometimes sweetly, sometimes strangely, but always with meaning.
Maybe the world is a little more complicated now, but the wish inside every valentine has not changed. “Be Mine.” At the “heart” of it, Valentine’s Day is about kindness. Whether it is a handmade paper heart from 1965 or a carefully curated Hallmark offering, the goal remains the same: to remind each other that we matter.
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