How did your grandparents, great grandparents, and even earlier ancestors celebrate Valentine’s Day? Through the eyes of newspaper readers of the past, we can transport ourselves back to earlier decades to see how affection was shown and sentiments exchanged on February 14.
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An 1839 column in the New Orleans Daily Picayune quotes Shakespeare on the subject and discusses 15th-century British customs where “the first woman seen by a man, or man seen by a woman, on St. Valentine’s day, is marked as their Valentine for the ensuing year. “It notes another contemporary custom of “young people sending complimentary or satirical letters … accompanied with a carricature engraving” which numbered fifteen thousand posts in New York alone in 1831. |
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Parade magazine, published in the 9 February 1958 edition of the Long Beach, CA, Independent Press Telegram, wondered if “you know all about love” and offered a quiz with a more scientific slant to its readers. Even Dennis the Menace flustered his father that year by questioning the history of a day that tormented him as he received “about sixty million valentines.” |
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Loveland, Colorado, became “Sweetheart Town,” when the president of the Loveland Chamber of Commerce realized the town’s postmaster was remailing valentines in the 1940s as requested by romantics in other parts of the country. He took advantage of the opportunity and notices of “Cupid’s Haven” appeared in newspapers around the nation in 1947, promising remailed valentines complete with the Loveland cancellation stamp. |
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Valentine’s Day commercialism was as prevalent in decades past as it is today. Publishers ramped up readership with enticing recipes for Valentine desserts in 1953, and promoted unusual floral fashion trends in 1941. Retailers used the sentimental day to increase sales. Ads offered everything from racy, spicy, sparkling cards for soldiers in 1863 wartime America, to televisions and telephones, not to mention dry cleaning services, in more recent publications. Who knew that in 1932 Montana, chiffon stockings could mend a broken heart? |
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Whether through Valentine’s Day sentiments of the past or via more modern traditions, love, hope, and infatuation monopolize our culture and our newspapers every February 14th.
It was interesting that you included the piece about Valentine’s Day from the 1939 New Orleans Daily Picayune but do not have that paper in your collection. What gives?
tjr
Probably destroyed by hurricane Katrina as was most archival publications.
The Daily Picayune is there in the older editions of The Times-Picayune. It looks like the paper was the Daily Picayune from 1837-1914; then in 1914 it merged with the preexisting Times-Democrat (which then briefly added the subtitle Daily Picayune); and then the Times-Democrat quickly thereafter became the Times-Picayune (1914-today).
St Valentine’s Day massacre, Chicago mobwars
It has come to be in recent years, that more Roses are sent as Valentine gifts than at any oher season of the year! A very busy day for Floral Shop deliveries when flowers say “Will You Be MY Valentine” ?