The woman behind the Valentine and how Feb. 14 became a holiday
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Esther Howland was 20-years-old when she started working at her father’s stationery store on Summer Street in Worcester, Massachusetts.
It was 1848 and the burgeoning community had just been incorporated as a city, according to Worcesterhistory.org. Howland had graduated from Mount Holyoke College the year before about 52 miles west.
A note decorated in Victorian-style lace and ornamentation arrived in the mail from England. It was a Valentine greeting from her father’s colleague.
The card left an indelible impression on the young woman. She got some paper and set out to recreate the card that had been sent to her dad. Throughout the next year, Howland formed a business dedicated to creating Valentine’s Day greeting cards and hired a team of women “to cut lace, trim hearts and stencil flowers,” the Washington Post reports.
“Howland was soon turning out thousands of valentines to meet demand. She later incorporated her business, sold it for a profit to George C. Whitney and made a name for herself among the few female entrepreneurs at the time,” the Post writes.
Though Howland never married, her cards helped ignite the romantic sparks for countless lovers at a time when Valentine’s Day was becoming increasingly popular. A tradition of exchanging cards every Feb. 14 had begun and over time, she became known as the “Mother of the Valentine.”
The tradition of exchanging Valentines began in the 1600s but the origins of the holiday date back much farther — 1,500 years to be exact. The man who inspired it was a third-century Roman priest known as St. Valentine.
Who was St. Valentine?
As a priest, Valentine would often perform secret marriages for couples because the reigning emperor at the time outlawed marriage. The emperor wanted soldiers in his army and he figured married men would be distracted so he made the practice of matrimony illegal.
Eventually, Valentine’s secret marriage ceremonies were discovered. The emperor sentenced him to death and put him in jail.
While in jail, Valentine fell in love with a woman who happened to be his jailor’s daughter. She would visit him on a regular basis and send him love letters.
Prior to his death, Valentine had written a letter to this woman affectionately signed, “From Your Valentine.” This greeting would forever establish him as one of the most romantic figures in history, which is why Valentine’s Day is a day of romance.
Christians would later name Valentine a saint.
The fact that Valentine’s day falls on February 14 is also significant. It happens to be the day Valentine was executed. It was also the date of an old Pagan fertility festival, in which a group of priests would get together and sacrifice a goat.
In case you didn’t know, a goat was believed to symbolize fertility.
The Roman priests would take the hide of the goat, shave it into small strips and slap their women around with them. (No joke!)
The women considered this a special honor because it meant the following year would be more fertile for them. And as we all know, nothing says I love you like a good slap across the face.
On that note, Happy Valentine’s Day (on Monday).
