Valentine’s Day Greetings To You
Valentine’s Day Greetings To You. Is best when flowers and chocolate are part of this special day.
How did Valentine Day begin?
Valentine’s Day greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine’s didn’t begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orléans, to his wife imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.)
Several years later, King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois. Including the United States, Valentine’s Day has the same celebration in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France and Australia. In Great Britain, Valentine’s Day began to be popularly celebrated around the 17th century.
By the middle of the 18th, it was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and by 1900 printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of one’s feelings were a no no, and discouraged.
Cheaper postage rates also contributed to an increase popularity of sending Valentine’s Day greetings.
Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700’s. In the 1840’s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as “scrap.”
Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards reach the hands of our loved ones each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards find their way into homes during Christmas.) Read more…