Esther Howland on the Valentine Business
2022-02-19
Did you send a valentine to someone this year? Perhaps it was an ecard or maybe a commercially printed product. Or did you make your own? Meet Esther Allen Howard (1828-1904).Read More →
Ester Howland and Valentine’s Day Civil War Style
2019-02-12
“…this is the day on which those charming little missives, ycelped* Valentines, cross and inter-cross at every street and turning. The weary and all forespent twopenny postman sinks below a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own.” Valentine’s Day in Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb 1860 (*called) Valentine’s Day was a well-established holiday by the 1860’s, dating back to, it is attributed, the ancient Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia, and to St. Valentine who, it is said, sent the first valentine to the girl who had visited him in prison, signed “From Your Valentine.” However, it is clear that by the 1860s the religious aspect of the day had been putRead More →