How Valentine’s Day Learned to Speak the Language of Love
Handwritten notes, mechanical cards, and mass printing reveal how romance became both a tradition and an industry.
It is difficult—if not downright impossible—to trace the true history of Valentine’s Day. There are enough stories about its origins to fill a box of assorted chocolates: some apocryphal, some unsubstantiated, and a few with just enough truth to make them worth nibbling. The name Valentine comes from the Latin for “worthy, strong, or powerful”—a solid resume for anyone planning to be a symbol of love, martyrdom, and greeting cards.
Long before roses and paper lace entered the picture, ancient philosophers were trying to figure out why humans behaved so foolishly in love. During the second century A.D., the Roman physician Galen, following in Aristotle’s footsteps, decided the answer was simple: it was all in the blood.
Galen believed the heart heated and churned the blood, which affected emotions. The heart was thought of as the center of the soul and controlled how you felt and reacted to things. Galen believed that the heart also played a role in sexual love. The thinking was that when a man was in a passionate state, the heart heats and whips the blood into a white froth, kind of like an espresso machine, resulting in the production of semen, which was nothing more than super-heated blood. It seems that love, like cardio, is basically a workout.
The official Roman Catholic roster of saints includes two named Valentine, both martyred in Rome and sharing the feast day of February 14. The details are fuzzy, but one account claims that in the year 489, on the night before his execution, St. Valentine of Rome wrote the very first “valentine” to his jailer’s daughter, signing it “Your Valentine.” It appears that even behind bars, in the shadow of death, Valentine knew the power of branding.
When the Feast of Saint Valentine was officially established in A.D. 496, it honored the same doomed romantic who’d lost his head—literally—in A.D. 269. Centuries later, the day’s association with love took root in 14th- and 15th-century Europe.
By 1477, longing had gone postal: the earliest surviving English valentine comes from The Paston Letters, when Margery Brewes addressed her fiancé John Paston as “my right well-beloved Valentine.”
Even Shakespeare couldn’t resist getting in on the act—Valentine’s Day pops up in both Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (Admittedly, both plays are full of love, confusion, and occasional murder—so, quite on brand.)
The phrase “From the bottom of my heart” dates back to the 1500s when people sincerely believed emotions were stored somewhere in the lowest portion of the heart. It wasn’t until the 17th century that science politely clarified that the heart is a muscle, rather than a mood ring. But by then, it was too late—romance had claimed total squatter’s rights.
You can follow your heart, cross your heart, and even eat your heart out. You can be light-hearted or have a heavy heart, or you can absentmindedly leave your heart in San Francisco, but the bottom line is, everyone has a heart, and we recognize the heart shape as a symbol of love.
By the mid-1820s, London was practically awash in love letters—some 200,000 valentines circulated, most hand-delivered by optimistic couriers. Mail was expensive: rates depended on distance and the number of sheets, and worse, the poor recipient had to pay.
Then came the 1840 postal reforms and Britain’s first postage stamp, finally making love affordable. With privacy (and postage) secure, valentine deliveries skyrocketed to 400,000 the next year. Suddenly, anyone could express love anonymously. By the 1860s, about 800,000 valentines fluttered across Britain annually.
Vinegar Valentines were cards with stinging, cruel insults for neighbors, people who sang or played an instrument poorly, people who were not intelligent, too intelligent, overweight, underweight, tall, short, ugly, unmarried, unhappily married, bad cooks, bad housekeepers, people who had crooked eyes, big noses, large ears and one for almost every profession; suffragettes were especially targeted. These cards spread throughout the Victorian era like gossip at a church social, and many went straight from the envelope to the fireplace, which contributed to their scarcity.
Across the Atlantic, a woman named Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts, became the first American to mass-produce Valentine cards in 1849. Her embossed paper lace creations were so elaborate that even Cupid probably needed a payment plan, as some cost the modern equivalent of $100.
In 1868, Cadbury added chocolate to the equation with its first “Fancy Boxes”-heart-shaped boxes of sweets that turned Valentine’s Day, and waistlines, into big business.
At one point in the 19th century, before we established our romantic color palette, blue hearts symbolized love, admiration, and emotional excitement. And whether blue or red, modern science gives an occasional nod to ancient superstition: people can, in fact, die of broken hearts. Stress-induced cardiomyopathy, known as broken-heart syndrome, is caused by severe emotional distress that floods the body with hormones, making the heart’s left ventricle swell dramatically. Symptoms include chest pain, shortness of breath, and in extreme cases, regret over ever meeting that ex.
By 1900, valentine cards took a whimsical turn. In one mechanical, easel-back Dan Cupid card, a girl coyly hides a kiss behind her fan. The message reads: “I know the way you look at me, you like this heart of mine. And as this is Dan Cupid’s Day, I’ll be your Valentine.”
Dan Cupid, created around 1902, was a mischievous cartoon rogue who shot arrows with questionable aim, making the least compatible people fall in love with each other. He once caused a friend to fall in love with a donut (like that’s a bad thing).
Over the centuries, St. Valentine’s identity became so muddled that by 1969 the Catholic Church retired his liturgical celebration, though he’s still officially recognized. St. Valentine now enjoys a wide and curious patronage: beekeepers, travelers, epileptics, and—perhaps fittingly—those plagued by love.
Meanwhile, not everyone welcomes February 14. Valentine’s Day celebrations are restricted or completely banned in several countries where religious or cultural authorities oppose the holiday’s Christian associations. Valentine celebrations have been outlawed in Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Brunei, Uzbekistan, and Saudi Arabia.
So, from Galen’s frothy blood to Cadbury’s creamy fillings, Valentine’s Day has traveled quite a road—one paved with passion, profit, and the occasional paper lace explosion.
Valentine’s Day cards evolved over several centuries from handwritten love notes into a major commercial industry, driven by changes in literacy, printing, and postal systems. Early valentines in Europe (15th–18th centuries) were usually short poems or affectionate messages written by hand, sometimes decorated with simple drawings or symbolic motifs like hearts, birds, and flowers, and often delivered secretly by slipping them under a door.
By the 18th century, more elaborate handmade cards appeared, with puzzles, acrostics, and rebus pictures, and printed “Valentine writers” were sold to help the less poetic choose verses, a precursor to the ready-made sentiments found in modern cards. At the very end of the 18th century, the first commercially printed valentines emerged in England.
The 19th century saw an explosion in popularity as cheaper paper, improved printing, and postal reforms (like Britain’s penny post) made sending cards affordable to the broader public, with millions exchanged annually by the Victorian era. Designs grew increasingly ornate, featuring real and paper lace, embossed details, silk, ribbons, and intricate pop-up or mechanical elements; at the same time, Vinegar Valentines offered a snarky counter-tradition with satirical or insulting messages.
In the United States, handmade valentines appeared by the early 1700s, and by the 1830s, as manufactured cards. Through the late 19th and 20th centuries, advances in chromolithography and mass printing turned valentine cards and postcards into a standardized seasonal product, ranging from sentimental and romantic to humorous, risqué, or child-friendly, and today they remain one of the most exchanged types of greeting cards worldwide
Our guest appraiser is Dr. Anthony Cavo, a certified appraiser of art and antiques and a contributing editor to Kovels Antique Trader. Cavo is also the author of Love Immortal: Antique Photographs and Stories of Dogs and Their People.
Do you have a question for Collector’s Gallery? Send your question and photos via e-mail to ATNews@aimmedia.com. Please include as much pertinent information about your item as possible, such as size, condition, history, and anything else that might help identify and value it.
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Dr. Anthony J. Cavo is an honors graduate of the Asheford Institute of Antiques and a graduate of Reisch College of Auctioneering. He has extensive experience in the field of buying and selling antiques and collectibles. Cavo is also the author of Love Immortal: Antique Photographs and Stories of Dogs and Their People.
