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If you resent St. Valentine's Day because of its treacly obsession with romance, don't blame Hallmark. The 20th-century greeting card company didn't produce Valentine's cards until 1913, and lovers and wannabe lovers had been sending each other sweet nothings on February 14 for centuries before that. In fact, Hallmark cashed in as the holiday became less romantic in the early 20th century, when family members and schoolchildren started to exchange Valentines, too.

Perhaps the romantic side of the holiday has been unfairly maligned. If you look at Valentines from the early to mid-1800s, when the artistry of paper tokens of love reached its height, your hard heart has to soften just a little bit. Sure, these cards can seem overly frilly to modern eyes, but when you think about how much work went into every intricate detail of a Valentine-at a time when paper was treasured and not the disposable wrapping on your sandwich-you realize it wasn't a frivolous endeavor.

Nancy Rosin, president of the National Valentine Collectors Association, has Valentines so beautiful, sincere, and meticulously handcrafted, they're sure to make even the most cynical among us swoon. "Life was very different in those times," explains Rosin, who paints a picture of a besotted suitor, after a long day of labor, staying up at night working by candlelight, to write, draw, cut, weave, or fold the perfect Valentine using the luxury product known as paper. "Emotionally, Valentines were important because life was relatively short. Men and women wanted to get married, and they married young. Back then, you celebrated every moment of life-birth, death, love, marriage."

The true origins of Valentine's Day are about as hard to pin down as a cutesy, fluttering Cupid covered in baby oil. It's the sort of holiday given to dramatic myths, many of which scholars haven't been able to prove or disprove.

We do know that ancient Romans celebrated a wild fertility-boosting bacchanal called Lupercalia around February 13-15, which has also been linked to the Catholic celebration of Carnival, or Mardi Gras. Priests would sacrifice a goat and a dog, and then make whips from the animals' skins. While people ran around drunk and naked, priests wearing the sacrificial hides would whip young women, who'd eagerly line up to get smacked, believing it would improve their chances of pregnancy.

One legend claims this ancient Feast of Lupercal also included a lover lottery in which each young man would pick a name voluntarily placed in an urn. That young woman would be his lover for the duration of the festival and, hopefully, the year. Some scholars dispute this, saying the first such matchmaking lotteries happened in medieval Europe. Others assert this festival was so popular that when the Catholic theocracy took over Europe, the Church couldn't convince people to give it up, so they changed it to a feast in honor of a Christian saint named Valentinus.

According to Catholic records, as many as three men named Valentinus may have been martyred in the name of Christianity during the Roman Empire. A bishop-who might account for both Valentinus of Rome and Valentinus of Terni-was beheaded by Roman Emperor Claudius II in A.D. 269 or 270. He was canonized by Pope Gelasius in A.D. 496, who outlawed Lupercalia the same year. After Valentine's feast day was established as February 14, a writer described the story of the saint curing the blindness of Julia, the daughter of a judge who'd thrown him in jail-a story repeated in the in The Nuremberg Chronicle, written in 1493. This miracle convinced her whole 49-member family, including the judge, to convert to Christianity. Later, the tale was embellished to include the martyr sending a note to Julia signed, "Your Valentine." Contradicting the ancient records, another legend asserts that Roman Emperor Claudius II also banned his soldiers from getting married, but that Saint Valentine was caught performing secret weddings for the men. Supposedly, Valentine would hand out hearts made of parchment to remind soldiers of God's love and their marriage vows.

It's said the Pope kept the Lupercal lottery, but changed the focus to piety: Young men and women could draw the name of a saint to emulate all year. But young Roman men weren't satisfied with the drawing and started writing notes to women they were interested in instead. During the medieval era, the matchmaking lottery known as " drawing lots " involved two boxes, one containing the names of single men and the other single women. A name would be drawn from each box, and the two declared a couple. The pair would exchange presents, and then the man, duty-bound to protect his new sweetheart, would wear her name on his sleeve for a year. In France, the woman was required to make a meal for and attend a dance with her drawn Valentine, but if he rejected her, she had to stay in seclusion for eight days.

"The romantic idea of Saint Valentine, as someone who was beloved himself as well as a friend of young people for encouraging love, has remained," Rosin says. However, the Catholic Church was determined to keep the focus on God's love. "By about the 1400s, nuns in French and German regions were creating vellum-parchment tokens called Devotionals, which would be sold for charity. Laypeople would give them to one another for any event-for marriage, communion, mourning, or love-and keep them in their Bibles. In the center of the Devotional would be a cartouche with a painting of a saint or a Sacred Heart, and for its border, the nuns would execute delicate knife-cut designs similar to tatted lace in the paper. We see similar designs later in Valentines with lace borders, and the religious hearts of the saints evolved into the secular hearts of lovers."

Rosin explains that a religious card might depict the Sacred Heart of Jesus or an "endless knot." These images of Jesus' unconditional and the path to spiritual enlightenment eventually evolved into symbols of romantic love.

"The 'endless knot of love' is a common motif, which, like the wedding band, has neither beginning nor end," Rosin says. "It comes from the German irrgarten, or a religious maze. The idea was that at the end, you would find enlightenment or Jesus Christ. Later, you have Valentines that have a labyrinth, but instead of finding Christ, it's all about finding true love."

The tradition of sending Valentine's Day cards may have evolved not only from lofty ideas about God's love, but also the notion of platonic love between friends. German-speaking countries such as Austria had a tradition in which one would drop by a friend's home on New Year's Day, and if you didn't catch them, you'd leave a note wishing them season's greetings. These notes evolved into Freundschaftskarten, or "Friendship Cards," which were also given on birthdays, anniversaries, and your Name Day, or the annual celebration of the saint you were named after, which was then more important than your birthday. Handwritten or printed Friendships Cards usually featured a verse, which could also be romantic in nature.

Chaucer's 1382 "Parliament of Fowls" is the first writing that associates Valentine's Day with romance, with the verse, "For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate." Considering the mating patterns of birds in England, scholars have theorized that Chaucer was actually referencing the feast of St. Valentine of Genoa, a bishop who died around A.D. 307 and was usually honored on May 3. But because of the changes to the Gregorian calendar, Chaucer's February 14 would have been our February 23, a time when English birds are just beginning to mate.

"Valentines were as inventive as the love, I guess. If the person was devoting a lot of time to it, he might be very creative."

Around 1400, Charles VI of France wrote about an elaborate feast with romantic songs, poetry, dancing, jousting, and even a "Court of Love," where women would rule on the disputes of lovers-but no one knows if such an event ever occurred. The first known Valentine was sent in 1415, from 21-year-old Charles, the French Duke of Orléans, who was being held prisoner in the Tower of London after he had been captured in the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Year's War. His poem starts with lines of yearning to his 16-year-old wife, Bonne of Armagna, written in French, "I am already sick of love, my very gentle Valentine."

King Henry VII decreed, via a 1537 Royal Charter, that "Saint Valentine's Day" would be honored in England on February 14. By the end of the 16th century, Valentine's Day was a source of angst for poets such as William Shakespeare, John Donne, and Edmund Spenser. In the 1660s, British politician and diarist Samuel Pepys wrote about the men his wife drew in the Valentine's lottery and of buying his mistresses expensive Valentine's presents such as embroidered gloves and rings, as well as shoestrings, silk stockings, and garters. He also wrote of popular holiday superstitions, like the idea that a woman would marry the first man she sees on Valentine's morning.

"In Pepys' diary, he writes about a paper Valentine with letters written in gold," Rosin says. "But before that, the Valentine was considered the person you loved, and not your gift for him or her. Pepys talks about these expensive gifts, like jewelry or lingerie. Lace handkerchiefs, which would be carried at a wedding, were also popular. A woman might receive a silver locket or a container for perfume, and men could receive snuff bottles. A sewing case known as an with beautiful French enamel would be a luxurious gift. Chocolate was a major gift, too, because people considered chocolate an aphrodisiac."

Thanks to a growing interest in botany, the coded means of communication known as the " Language of Flowers," or floriography, came to Europe from the Ottoman Empire in the early 1700s. A lover could express an elaborate message through a bouquet or a hand-colored etching of a bouquet. A red camellia said "You're a flame in my heart," while a striped carnation meant, "No, I can't be with you" and a purple hyacinth said, "I am sorry, please forgive me." A daisy stood for "pure love" while a scarlet zinnia represented "constancy" and a dandelion "happiness." Red roses, thought to be the preferred flower of Venus, Goddess of Love, became an enduring symbol of romantic love. Thus, flowers, especially red roses, and also pictures of flowers became an important part of Valentine's Day.

By the early 19th century, people from all levels of British society were exchanging handwritten notes and other tokens of affection. Derived from Devotionals and German Friendship Cards-which had grown more and more beautiful over the centuries-paper cards or letters became treasured Valentine's gifts, exchanged by both platonic friends and lovers. (Even children participated in Valentine's Day in the 1800s, by singing holiday carols at school.) At the time, new paper mills were producing fine paper from the rags of linen, cotton, and hemp, and it was expensive enough to be considered a luxury or indulgence. Simple pulp cards embossed with sweet images and messages were also sent as Valentines.

"Early Valentine cards featured simple designs, like one I have from around 1750 with an embossed bouquet of flowers and one little line about love," Rosin says. "As soon as stationery paper became available, people would just write a poem in the middle of the decorative border, and that might be the Valentine. Toward the end of the 18th century, Valentines grew more elaborate."

Because polite society in the 18th and 19th centuries demanded that people keep their passions to themselves, Valentine's Day flourished. It gave both men and women a fleeting opportunity to express their true feelings without risking total humiliation. "Valentines became a way that a woman could express affection because they were generally sent anonymously," Rosin says. "Sometimes collectors find a blank antique valentine and say, 'It was never used.' But it might have been used, because it was not unusual for them to be delivered unsigned. If they were marked, sometimes it was just the initials, or the name written backward, or it just said 'From a serious admirer.'"

Part of the game was figuring out who it was from, Rosin says. Often admirers would deliver the message themselves by hand, slipping their Valentine under the door or hanging it on the doorknob. But finding a Valentine wasn't always a delight: People also used the holiday as an opportunity to anonymously air their grievances toward one another with so-called Vinegar Valentines.

Before the modern postal service, receiving mail in England was complex and expensive-which is why so many Valentines were hand-delivered. The cost was calculated by distance and per sheet of paper, and the fee was paid by the recipient, who would likely turn down a letter they couldn't afford. For this reason, instead of being wrapped in another piece of paper (an extra charge), most early paper Valentines were "stampless covers," a form of mail in which the note is simply folded and sealed with wax for privacy.

"You didn't use a homemade envelope, because it would have cost more, and the person who received it had to pay to accept it," Rosin says. "If a man's daughter received lots and lots of these Valentines from admirers, he might have declined them and said, 'I'm not paying for any more.' So those Valentines wouldn't get delivered.

"A Valentine was sometimes just a romantic letter on a beautiful piece of stationery folded and sealed with wax," Rosin says. "Even the imprints in the wax might convey a secret romantic message. I have love-letter seals, including sets of six, with a different design for every day of week except Sunday, because you didn't send a love note on the holy day."

If a young woman's father was the sort to refuse to pay for the post, she might have him to blame for her spinster status: Some Valentines, Rosin explains, were sent as wedding proposals. A Valentine might include paper gloves or a paper wedding band-or a metal ring or real fabric gloves-and she knew what that meant. "If a woman received gloves for Valentine's Day and she accepted them and wore them Easter Sunday, it was an acceptance of a marriage proposal," Rosin says.

Before Valentines were mass-produced, people had to get creative. Women might embroider messages of love on fabrics. Some suitors wrote verse in beautiful calligraphy on a piece of embossed paper stationery, but if they lacked the skills to do so, they could pay for help. Better stationery shops offered a service where a clerk with lovely handwriting would write out your Valentine poem for you. And if you had trouble coming up with an appropriately romantic rhyme, you could purchase a broadside or chapbook known as a Valentine Writer, which provided both initial declarations of love and also poetic responses for the recipient.

"Some of the poems were meant for stylish, elite people," Rosin says, "and others were for tradesmen. The baker's poem might say, 'I knead your dough.' Maybe the woman would have the same little booklet, and she could respond. But I've never been able to put any of the poetry that I see in these booklets to an actual valentine. Although some of the writers in my collection have little notations in pencil and little scribbles."

Rosin says while the Valentine Writers offered women poems to send as polite rejections, she's only come across one 19th century Valentine declining a suitor. "One of the first pieces I ever bought has a line written on the bottom saying, 'No, sir, I do not require your love.'"

Some admirers created puzzles like acrostics, or verses that used the first letters of their sweethearts' names, or rebuses, which replace certain words or letters in the message with drawings representing them. Another popular Valentine riddle was a puzzle purse, a piece of paper carefully folded as many as nine times. The poem would run along the edge of the folds, and the recipient would have to open it in the right sequence to understand the message.

"The puzzle purse was folded very tightly," Rosin says. "As you would open it up, there would be messages all along. It might be hard to refold it, as a matter of fact. It might even have numbers indicating the order in which you were supposed to read the panels to decipher the message. The puzzles that were used in Valentines were as inventive as the love, I guess. If the person was devoting a lot of time to it, he might be very creative."

In 18th-century America, an abundance of paper mills in Pennsylvania allowed the Germans who settled there, known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, to create beautiful illuminated documents, form of folk art known as . The Fraktur style, which originated in the church and was taught to schoolchildren, was also applied to Valentines and love letters known as liebesbriefe. The Pennsylvania Dutch also brought a traditional Germanic paper-cutting technique known as Scherenschnitte to the colonies and employed it for silhouettes, Valentines, and love letters.

"If a man's daughter received lots and lots of Valentines from admirers, he might have declined them."

The art of the cutout was also important to British poet, charity founder, and abolitionist Elizabeth Cobbold, who, according to Rosin's research, revived the concept of the Valentine lottery at her annual parties in Ipswich, England. Starting around 1806 until her death in 1824, every year, she and her 22 children and stepchildren would make gorgeous white papercuts and paste them to red backings for their celebration. Each Valentine, which also included a cryptic verse, would be placed in a basket and drawn by a guest.

"Just last May I visited the Ipswich house with Elizabeth Cobbold's great-great-great-great-grandson, who showed me around," Rosin says. "She would spend hours and hours on her cutouts, which reflected mythology, poetry, botany, and history, and she would write a poem for each. These would be folded, wrapped in paper, and put into a basket. A guest would pick one, and it would dictate who would be their Valentine."

Around the same time, Austria, Germany, and Denmark entered a peaceful stretch of relative prosperity known as the "Biedermeier Period" (1815-1848), during which the new middle-class embraced a sentimental, apolitical aesthetic that focused on clean lines and pastoral scenes. The Biedermeier Valentines and Friendship Cards were delightfully inventive, particularly their "moveable" or "mechanical cards." Sweet cartoons of country life would move or change when you pulled a tab. Lifting a flap might reveal a secret message of love. Other Biedermeiers had a device known as a "cobweb," a circle-shaped paper cover that could be pulled out into a beehive-like lattice cone revealing an image or message underneath. These cards might be hand-painted, embossed, gilded, or adorned with mother-of-pearl.

"If a woman received gloves for Valentine's Day and she wore them Easter Sunday, it was an acceptance of a marriage proposal."

Some 19th-century women gave the men they loved a "watch paper," a delicate little bit of paper slipped into his pocket watch to protect the movement from dust. "Every time the man opened his watch to see the time, he would see this message from his beloved." These were similar to love tokens, or coins that were engraved with a message of love on at least one side, which could be kept in a pocket or worn on a piece of jewelry like a charm.

If a woman's sweetheart were a sailor-who might be protecting Britain's sea empire aboard a military or merchant ship, or hunting whales for their precious lamp oil-she faced the grim reality he may never return. So sailor tokens of love were particularly wrought, from beautiful glass rolling pins filled with the precious commodity known as salt to corset busks made from whale bone and scrimshawed with romantic imagery. For Valentine's Day, seamen between 1830 and 1890 often brought home octagonal wooden boxes with a glass panel on the front, revealing an intricate seashell design, often of a compass rose or a heart. It is believed that these Valentine boxes were crafted by Barbadian women and purchased at a store called New Curiosity Shop in Bridgetown, Barbados.

But paper cards of the era could be just as ornate. During the early 19th century, paper mills produced reams of so-called lace paper, made of fiber rag pulp, with embossed cameos depicting couples, churches, cherubs, and figures from ancient Greek mythology. Lovers would buy this paper and layer and collage it with satin ribbons, silk chiffon panels, molded wax flowers, metallic Dresden ornaments, pieces of wallpaper, locks of hair, and other decorative scraps. Sometimes the messages of love would be buried beneath all the frills.

"Until the 1860s, you saw all these really beautiful confections of lace paper that were made by manufacturers," Rosin says. "Or you could go to a shop that sold supplies and make them yourself. Experts say 1840 to 1860 was the Golden Era of Valentines, because they were just so elaborate. They got so heavy that according to Frank Staff in his book, The Valentine and Its Origins, they had to be boxed before mailing."

The tradition of sending Valentines exploded in the middle of the 19th century, but not just because the romance between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and their 1840 marriage turned the Brits into a bunch of sentimental saps. We can actually thank two Industrial Age advancements: First, new machines produced cheap paper from wood pulp, which started to become available to the masses in the 1830s, allowing the average person to keep a journal or send letters.

Second, the British postal system underwent a huge reformation in 1840, so that for the first time anyone could send a letter of "moderate weight" for one penny. A prepaid rubber-stamped diamond-shaped letter wrapper known as the Mulready envelope was developed in the late 1830s, and it was followed by the introduction of the first adhesive postage stamp, known as the Penny Black, in 1840. In 1845, Edwin Hill and Warren De La Rue patented the first envelope machine, which cut paper into a diamond shape, then folded it into a rectangular wrapper. Their machine made a splash at the first world's fair, the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. These new envelopes eventually became as elaborate as the stationery paper they contained.

"The new postal system made mailing Valentines accessible to everyone," Rosin says. "Then, in 1851, there was de la Rue's machine, which was a magical advancement."

Rosin's research shows that by the 1830s, each year, roughly 60,000 Valentines passed through the London post office, when the city's population was well over 1 million. Postal reformer Rowland Hill figured that 400,000 were sent in England in 1840, and more than 500,000 in 1850. In 1871, when the city's population was over 3 million, more than 1.5 million Valentines were sent within London alone.

The United States also saw a major reduction of postal rates in 1845, and by 1851, a letter could be sent 3,000 miles for three cents. That same year, the United States government established postal routes in all cities and towns, eliminating the need for private delivery services, which brought people mail from the local post office. Thanks to these changes, sales of Valentines grew in America, too.

While New York City lithographers and woodblock printers had been offering Valentines since the turn of the 19th century, one woman is credited with popularizing paper lace Valentines in the United States. Nineteen-year-old Esther Howland, whose family owned the largest book and stationery store in Worcester, Massachusetts, received an intricate English Valentine from one of her father's business associates in 1847. Enamored with the idea, she convinced her father to order lace paper and embellishments like Dresden ornaments and George Baxter print images from London and New York City. When her brother took her samples on his sales trip, he returned with more than $5,000 worth of orders. Since Howland couldn't make them all herself, she brought in her friends to build them in an assembly-line style. Her product was so wildly popular, it sold all across the United States, even as far as the settlements in California.

"One of the first Valentines I ever bought has a line written on the bottom saying, 'No, sir, I do not require your love.'"

"Esther Howland was the 'Mother of the American Valentine,'" Rosin says. "American Valentines had existed before, but she made them more readily available. Her initial Valentines were small and usually marked with an 'H' and a number indicating the price or 'N.E.V.Co.' for her company, New England Valentine Company. But there are a lot of larger ones that were not signed that we now attribute to her. In 1850, she was the only person in Massachusetts who had access to these elegant European embellishments, and her Valentines had multiple layers of beautiful lace papers. You would lift one layer and then another and another. The message would usually be deep inside because she didn't like to have you 'wear your heart on your sleeve.'"

Rosin and fellow Valentine collectors believe Howland didn't sign her largest pieces because they were embarrassingly lavish and expensive. "There is a story going around that she made such an elaborate Valentine in the shape of a May basket, and it might have sold for $50, which was the price of a horse and buggy at that time," Rosin says. "We are told that the man was rejected because the woman said she would never marry anyone who would waste his money like that. So we've come to the conclusion that she probably avoided putting her name on the back of her fanciest Valentines. But we can't guarantee that they're her work."

Across the pond, some of the most luxurious Valentines were being made by a French-born London perfumer named Eugène Rimmel, who exploited the upper class' obsession with smelling good and avoiding the stench of London. Already boasting Queen Victoria as client, he impressed visitors to the Great Exhibition of 1851 with his elaborate perfume fountain. At theaters where the body odor of lower classes wafted up to the elites in the balcony, he handed out perfumed programs-featuring prominent advertisements for his Valentines and other goods-which let high-society ladies wave pleasant scents under their noses. At his shop on London's Strand in the 1860s, he offered artful sweet-smelling music boxes, sachets, and mother-of-pearl fans, as well as scented paper Valentines. He hired a brilliant illustrator named Jules Chéret-who went on to become "the father of the poster "-to produce images of cherubs, romantic bouquets, and romantic heroines. Rimmel Valentines also came in the shape of fold-out fans, and he popularized the idea of giving paper gloves.

"Many of the most beautiful Valentines were made by Rimmel," Rosin says. "He had shops in London and in Paris where he sold perfumes, and Valentine's Day was one of his biggest moneymaking seasons. He had valentines for every theme, for every occasion, including themed cards based on Shakespeare or the Language of Flowers. Some of his Valentines had jewels like brooches attached to them; others were flowers hand-painted on silk. Rimmel also made beautiful chromolithographed almanacs for each year."

In the United States, the devastating Civil War made love confessions even more urgent. Valentines from the period (1861-'65) show sweethearts parting ways or feature a tent where the flaps pull back to reveal a soldier inside. Lovelorn soldiers and their beloved would send one another locks of hair, as romantic messages and tokens of love gave soldiers motivation to return home safe. In the wake of the war, Americans, faced with unprecedented loss of life, became more sentimental, embracing Valentine's Day as an opportunity to seize the day and honor the love they had.

In the mid-1800s, technology for producing chromolithography and die-cut scraps became more widespread and affordable in Europe and the United States, which allowed publishers like Louis Prang, Raphael Tuck & Sons, Marcus Ward, and McLoughlin Brothers to mass-produce Valentine's cards with beautiful illustrations-by the likes of Kate Greenaway, Walter Crane, Frances Brundage, Ellen Clapsaddle, and Maud Humphrey-and to cut these cards into interesting shapes like hearts. Printers also churned out thousands of lithographed die-cut "scraps" as the scrapbooking hobby gained popularity, particularly among women, who hoped to receive pretty Valentines they could paste into their books.

"After chromolithography became more widely available, around the 1860s, people could buy mass-produced Valentines that were appealing and reasonably priced," Rosin says. "People's lifestyles had changed after the Industrial Revolution. As they got busier, they became accustomed to buying things they had previously made by hand, which freed up some of their time."

The expensive and time-consuming handmade paper confections, like the ones on which Esther Howland's fortune was made, were going out of fashion. Paper Valentines lost the intricate, personal details that once defined them, and this, of course, led to grumbling about how Valentine's Day had been ruined by Industrialization. But even then, beautiful things were being made.

"You began to get a lot of imports from Germany, because that's where chromolithography was at its peak," Rosin says. "German companies made Valentines with pop-ups including tissue-paper honeycombs that folded out into three-dimensional objects. The card imagery followed the new technology of the day, so you would have, for example, a steamship, hot-air balloon, dirigible, a modern roadster, or even an 'aeroplane.' It expressed to your beloved, 'This is a magical new technology, and maybe if you choose me, this will be our future.' In England, Raphael Tuck & Sons made some of these wonderful chromolithographed pieces, including mechanical cards with moving marionettes and climbers."

Howland's paper-confection business in Massachusetts was holding on until 1879, when she sold the company to a competitor, George Whitney. By 1888, Whitney had bought out at least nine other Valentine rivals in the United States. (Howland died in 1904 having never married, but she surely helped thousands of other couples to the altar.) Whitney's version of Howland's cards, as well as many created by the McLoughlin Brothers Company, "were mostly chromolithographed layers," Rosin says. "Maybe there would be one lace layer and some embellishment, but they didn't have the same luxurious feeling. Some are really beautiful, and some are awful."

Valentine's Day, then, sold out to machine-age commercialization almost 150 years ago, several decades before Hallmark arrived. But the Valentine-swapping traditions have lived on, through the 1900s' mass-produced postcards, which have now become highly collectible, and modern folded greeting cards and card sets for schoolchildren, as well as lavish lover's gifts of chocolate, diamond rings, and lingerie. According to the U.S. Greeting Card Association, currently around 190 million Valentines are mailed in America each year. Naturally, as the holiday has grown, so has the cynicism about it-some laugh at it, others shrug it off, and many flat-out call it a sham. Still, you have to wonder whether in the days when women eagerly awaited for the postman to deliver sentimental and scented lace Valentines, did those who waited in vain end up feeling shafted?

"Young people who didn't receive any Valentines probably ended up heartbroken," Rosin says. "I'm sure it must have been a very sad day. In one article in a newspaper from the 1870s, the author wrote, 'I feel that Cupid must have an evil twin, because he inflicts so much pain.'"

( To connect with Nancy Rosin and the National Valentine Collectors Association, visit the group's web site or Facebook page, and sign up for their newsletter, The Valentine Writer. See more antique Valentines at the Bodleian Library's John Johnson Collection Pinterest page, co-curated by the NVCA. For further reading, pick Frank Staff's "The Valentine and Its Origins"; Ruth Webb Lee's "A History of Valentines"; Michele Karl's "Greeting With Love: The Book of Valentines"; and Edna Barth's "Hearts, Cupids, and Red Roses: The Story of Valentine Symbols.")

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All You Need Is Paper: Why Antique Valentines Still Melt Modern Hearts

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If you resent St. Valentine's Day because of its treacly obsession with romance, don't blame Hallmark. The 20th-century greeting card company didn't produce Valentine's cards until 1913, and lovers and wannabe lovers had been sending each other sweet nothings on February 14 for centuries before that.

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EYER, JOHANN ADAM
(1755-1837)
produced hundreds of pieces of fraktur for about fifty years, while serving as a schoolmaster in Mennonite and Lutheran schools in Pennsylvania. He initially copiedMennonite or Schwenkfelder schoolmaster artists who made
vorschriften
(writing examples) for their pupils, but quickly began to develop new forms of the art. Hisschool roll book from 1779 to 1787 still exists, making it possible to link surviving fraktur pieces to the school terms of their owners. A
vorschrift
generally contains areligious text elaborately lettered, outlined in normal cursive script, and concluded with the alphabet and a selection of numerals on a full sheet of early Pennsylvania paper, measuring eight by thirteen inches. Eyer's fastidious hand had an influence on other Pennsylvania schoolmasters for many years. By folding the paper once hemade a
vorschrift
booklet, with four pages of text and an elaborate cover. By cutting a large sheet of it in half lengthwise, he made the pages for a book of musical notes (Eyer was anaccomplished musician and taught musical notation to his students).Johann Eyer was born in Bedminster Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and taught in Chester and Lancaster Counties, but by about 1786 he and his entirefamily moved to Upper Mount Bethel Township, Northampton County, where he taught in the Lutheran school. In 1801 they moved again farther north to HamiltonTownship, Monroe County, where Eyer was a teacher and a clerk at Christ Hamilton Lutheran Church.Eyer never married. As the oldest son he presided over his parental estate, turning it into a valuable one for its day. One brother, Johann Frederick (1770-1827),was a schoolmaster-organist and fraktur artist in Chester, Berks, and Snyder Counties. Another, Ludwig, was Eyer's agent in developing the town of Bloomsburg inColumbia County, in 1802. Eyer's good friend, Andreas Kolb, was a Mennonite school-master and fraktur artist in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and the twoexchanged work.In his later years, Eyer made bookplates for hymnals, baptismal records, and many small presentation frakturs. His drawing of a soldier's wedding along with someof his birds and eagles make him one of the most important practitioners of the art. In his early years, he made some of the finest fraktur that exists, in the form of carefully lettered and illustrated poems. Eyer died in 1837 in Hamilton Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania.
See also
Fraktur; German American Folk Art;

Pennsylvania German Folk Art; Religious Folk Art; Schwenkfelders
.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Weiser, Frederick S.
Something for Everyone, Something for You.
Breinigsville, Pa., 1980

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EYER, JOHANN ADAM (1755-1837) produced hundreds of pieces of fraktur for about fifty years, while serving as a schoolmaster in Mennonite and Lutheran schools in Pennsylvania. He initially copiedMennonite or Schwenkfelder schoolmaster artists who made vorschriften (writing examples) for their pupils, but quickly began to develop new forms of the art.

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By MYRA VANDERPOOL GORMLEY, CG
Copyright © 1994, 2007-All rights reserved.
Do not post or publish without written permission.

American folk art has become more and more popular over the years, and frakturs have become a particular favorite among collectors. These illustrated manuscripts, which are drawn with pen and ink and embellished with vivid colors, are not just nice to look at-they can provide a wealth of genealogical information to researchers. Important historical details often documented in frakturs include family names, relationships, dates, and locations.

The most common type of fraktur is the taufschein, or baptismal certificate. It includes names of the child, father, and mother (with her maiden name); date and place of birth; name and denomination of officiating clergyman; and names of the witnesses present. Originally, ministers and teachers made the frakturs, but later, itinerant penmen and local artisans were responsible for their creation. Frakturs were popular in this country from 1750 to 1900, reaching at peaks between 1800 and 1835. Today, hefty prices are being paid, as they are cherished among collectors. As a result, many frakturs are pictured in publications and auction catalogs, which means important genealogical information is available, even if one is not able to examine the fraktur.

Frakturs were produced mainly in Pennsylvania, the cradle of the Pennsylvania Dutch settlements prior to the Revolutionary War. The term "Dutch" refers to the German-speaking population (mostly Germans and Swiss) and is a corruption of Deutsch, which means German. Frakturs were also made in western Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, the Carolinas, Ohio, and other states, as well as in Ontario, Canada, where many Germans emigrated from southeastern Pennsylvania. The documents were crafted by people of various religions, but the great majority were made by Lutheran and German Reformed schoolmasters of Pennsylvania.

For descendants of the Pennsylvania Dutch, the possibility of finding frakturs made for family members is good. They may be found in family papers, Bibles, and books, or in files of distant kinsmen and genealogists, libraries, archives, historical societies, and antique shops. Many frakturs have a fold line through the center, as they often were preserved between the leaves of large Bibles, or in hymnal, music, or school books. Some were rolled and put in drawers, while others were passed inside the lids of dower chests or in schranks (wooden wardrobe closets.) One genealogist discovered a large schrank that was completely covered-inside, back, and sides-with frakturs made for various members of the family to whom the schrank had belonged.

The German word "fraktur" actually refers to a certain design of Gothic letters. Early printers tried to produce books that resembled handwritten manuscripts, and "fraktur" is the "broken" lettering found in these early manuscripts. Today, however, "fraktur" refers to the entire decorated manuscripts. The documents' decorations vary greatly in design and color. All kinds of flowers are depicted, but tulips are especially popular. Birds, such as doves, cardinals, parrots, eagles, peacocks, scarlet tanagers, and yellow warblers, appear in the frakturs' borders. One may find crocodiles, sheep, an occasional serpent, mermaids, angels, and even portraits. Also among the designs are natural elements such as the sun, moon, stars, rainbows, vines, leaves, trees, butterflies, and fruits. Some manuscripts feature portraits of individuals, such as George Washington and Andrew Jackson. On a few wedding certificates, there are pictures of a bride and bridegroom, which may have been an effort at portraiture. In general, the fraktur decorations display joyful scenes, but the text often reminds the reader of the shortness of this life, and the approach of death.

Baptism certificates were greatly esteemed. They were framed and hung upon the walls of the home. It became the practice of penmen (called scriveners) to prepare certificates with blank areas that could be filled in and to peddle them from house to house. Ferdinand Klenk, who lived in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, was one such itinerant penman. He traveled in the rural sections and entered the records of birth, marriage, and death into his customers' family Bibles. His notebook, dated January 1, 1875, shows samples of his handwriting with prices he charged for his work. The costs were: one name with the date of birth, 10 cents; with the addition of place of birth, 15 cents; with parents' names, 25 cents. Eventually, to fill the burgeoning demand for birth and baptismal certificate forms that ministers, schoolteachers, or others could fill in, printers supplied a page with the text arranged in a rectangular block at the center. The spaces for the names and dates were left blank, and the borders provided ample opportunity for decorations, if the owner so desired. Later, taufscheins were mass-produced by major printing firms such as Currier and Ives.

Texts on frakturs fall into two main categories: primary texts, where the genealogical information is found, and secondary texts, which usually contain religious topics and are found in small heart-shaped or rectangular enclosures positioned around the central primary text. The primary text usually begins with the parents' names, but occasionally starts off with the child's name. Those beginning with the child's name were often printed on vertically oriented angel-type certificates and were written in English from circa 1820 into the last century. Occasionally, however, major artists before 1820 began their certificates with the child's name, so genealogists are cautioned not to assume the first name on the certificate is the father's name.

Although birth and baptism certificates are the most common frakturs, other types were created. In addition to making taufscheins, marriage certificates, and songbooks, schoolmasters frequently decorated bookplates. Fraktur bookplates can be key sources of genealogical data because they include the date of birth and other information about the book owner. The bookplate of a German Reformed Church hymnal recorded Maria Staufer 's birth on April 8, 1777 "in Zeichen des Widder" (in the sign of the ram). Making reference to zodiac signs was also a common practice that dates back to medieval illuminators.

The Pennsylvania Dutch regarded their homes as sacred, and the blessing of God was frequently invoked in a type of fraktur known as Haus Segen, or house blessing. This is a prayer for the preservation of the house from destruction through fire, storm, or other calamity, and for a benediction upon the owner, his family, and all those who enter and exit the house. "Der Segen Gottes Kron dies Haus" (the blessing of God crown this house) is the usual opening prayer in the Haus Segen. The owner's name usually appears in these records, and some Haus Segens combine birth records and house blessings.

One of the most prolific fraktur artists was Friedrich Krebs. This Hessian soldier returned to America after the American Revolution and settled in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. Krebs often drew "sun faces" on his frakturs, which now make his works immediately recognizable.

Marketplace value of frakturs is largely determined by their overall condition, color, fullness of decoration, and motifs. Each one, no matter how fragmentary, should be recorded so that the work of the artist and the genealogical data are preserved for posterity. Each fraktur is unique, and has the potential of being the only place that certain genealogical information was recorded.

There are several resources that can assist you in your research on frakturs. Two reference books currently available are: The Genealogist's Guide to Frakturs for Genealogists Researching German-American Families (by Corinne Pattie Earnest and Beverly Repass Hoch, available from Russell D. Earnest Associates) and The Pennsylvania German Frakturs of the Free Library of Philadelphia (compiled by Frederick S. Weiser and Howell J. Heaney, available from the Pennsylvania German Society), which features more than 1,000 frakturs with translations. Museums and institutions that have excellent fraktur collections include Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Free Library of Philadelphia, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, National Archives, National Daughters of the American Revolution, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Winterthur Museum and Gardens.

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By MYRA VANDERPOOL GORMLEY, CG Copyright © 1994, 2007-All rights reserved. Do not post or publish without written permission. American folk art has become more and more popular over the years, and frakturs have become a particular favorite among collectors. These illustrated manuscripts, which are drawn with pen and ink and embellished with vivid colors,...

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Puzzle purses are square pieces of paper folded into envelope-like packets. The paper is folded into thirds in both directions to form a grid of 9 smaller squares; or the the paper can be folded into a grid of 16ths. The creased paper is then collapsed upon itself to form a twist top. The extending arms can be left in pinwheel formation, or folded and tucked into adjacent layers. [Left: Puzzle Purse by Alice Simpson]

This type of folding has been around for quite some time. In Japan, the envelope packet is called a " Tato" and can be used to store small items such as buttons and needles. [Photo: a tato from Compete Origami]

In Germany and other parts of Europe, baptism certificates called "Patenbriefs" were folded in this manner. The certificates contained information about a Godchild and the responsibilities of Godparents to ensure a righteous upbringing. They are pseudo-formal documents of the past. [Photo: a Patenbrief, 1831; from A Bauer]

In Britain, messages were folded into Valentine Puzzle Purses and given as love notes. Often, each panel is numerically labeled and the recipient is to open and read each panel in sequential order. It is a challenge for the recipient to refold the letter into its original form. [Photo: Puzzle purse designed by Alice Simpson, photo from Bound & Lettered]

Valentine Puzzle Purses were the rage in the 18th and 19th century. Collectors value this type of Victorian tradition and an authentic puzzle purse dating back to 1782 was sold on ebay for almost $1700 US. [Top: Valentine Puzzle Purse, 1816; Bottom: Patenbrief, circa 1816. Photos from N Rosin.] Not everyone can get their hands on such antiques, so why not make puzzle purses yourself? They're fun to make and it's a cute way to tell someone that you care.

Opening Valentine Puzzle Purses

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Puzzle purses are square pieces of paper folded into envelope-like packets. The paper is folded into thirds in both directions to form a grid of 9 smaller squares; or the the paper can be folded into a grid of 16ths. The creased paper is then collapsed upon itself to form a twist top.

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Among the many works on paper in The Met's Department of Drawings and Prints is a large collection of historic valentines from Europe and the United States. In paper form, these tokens of love are known from the 17th century onwards, and were either handmade or, from the mid-18th century onwards, produced as commercial products by printmakers and manufacturers of paper goods.

As a result of advances in printing and paper-making techniques, as well as the development of an efficient and inexpensive means of postal delivery, the custom of sending greeting cards and gifts on Saint Valentine's Day reached its pinnacle around the mid-19th century. The popular holiday was embraced and celebrated across all strata of society with parties, balls, and the quintessential elaborate paper greetings that became a veritable hallmark of British and American Victorian life. Whether sentimental or satirical, simple homemade missives or fancy machine-made confections, everyone hoped to receive a valentine from a beloved on February 14. Chronicling the most intimate communication between private individuals, the valentines that have been preserved give us a unique look into the sentiments, hopes, and dreams of generations of lovers, and the means through which they chose to express them.

As a passionate collector for more than 40 years, I have been given the unique opportunity to explore and catalog part of the rich array of these treasures within the Museum's collection. Donated and collected over several decades, the collection contains many rarities, and it is my pleasure to share some of the details and intricacies of these enchanted expressions of love. So in honor of Valentine's Day, I present a few very special reflections of 19th-century romance known as so-called cobwebs.

Cobwebs-also known as beehives, flower cages, or birdcages-are a rare example of a mechanical or movable valentine consisting of a minimum of two layers of paper. First, a web or cage would be cut from a piece of paper by making a pattern of concentric circles, leaving attachment points at regular intervals. In the center of the spiral, a delicate thread would be attached and its outer edges would be pasted directly on top of a second sheet on which an image or message would be written, painted, or printed.

As a cover, the cobweb formed the perfect sanctuary to enclose a private message that could only be revealed when the recipient of the card carefully pulled up the thread, causing the concentric circles of the web to rise and magically expose its hidden compartment. The concept of secrecy and the element of surprise frequently recurs in valentines, as they speak to the intimacy that has always been a part of the language of love and is one of the reasons why the cobwebs were so popular.

Cobwebs could be made by hand or bought as a machine-made product, both with various levels of intricacy. For the more modest handmade version, let's first look at a simple circle of cardboard dated around 1830-40 (above). The web itself is cut out of a thin white tissue paper, and is edged with a pink watercolor border. A tiny yellow ribbon at the center allows you to lift up the carefully cut web, revealing a glorious portrait of a beautiful woman. Her long, dark ringlets are caught at the sides with roses, and she wears a golden locket suspended from a black cord over her bodice. Through the protection of the tissue web, the image has retained its vivacity over the 200 years since it was produced.

One of the most elegant and complex cobwebs in The Met collection uses symbols to add to the hidden message of the valentine. The attributes and symbolism of flowers, in particular, could speak to an array of secret messages or desires, which is why they recur so often in the design of many valentines. These were often painted or printed, although fabric or dried flowers were sometimes used as well.

This card's crisp and clean interior may look brand new, but the soiled exterior reflects its travails as one of the more than 60,000 that are estimated to have been sent at that time. It was folded, sealed with wax, and postmarked in 1840, when it made its way to its addressee, a Miss Eliot, at Shooter's Hill in Kent, whom, judging from the complexity and the associate cost of this valentine, must have been very important to the sender!

At first sight, this valentine seems to present a simple but elegant offering with a composition of roses, forget-me-nots, and oak branches around a painted morning glory, or convolvulus, that give little hint of the surprises this card has in store. On second view, one notices the unusual twisted base of the central flower. When very gently untwisted, it opens up to reveal a round compartment decorated with a beautiful watercolor bouquet that, in turn, contains a cobweb device: delicately lifting the thread reveals the interior image of a dove.

From the highly detailed embossed cherubs and oak leaves in the paper-made by the London manufacturer Dobbs and embossed DOBBS PATENT-to the hand-painted flowers, this valentine is a beautiful example of layered eloquence. In the Language of Flowers the morning glory represents love and affection, but also unrequited love; the rose stands for love; the forget-me-not symbolizes true love and memories; and the oak and acorn signify strength, potential, and patience. Collectively these flowers communicate a message without the need for the written word, which is all the more important since the card appears to have been sent without a handwritten message to accompany the imagery. Anonymity was part of the tradition of valentines and since many women were graced with numerous admirers, guessing the sender was an integral part of the fun.

A special form of the cobweb valentine is the so-called double cobweb. Using a variety of paper engineering feats, double cobwebs could be arranged on the page side by side, one on top of another, or even emanating from attachments at both top and bottom (recto and verso) of the pages. The double cobwebs in The Met collection are rarities, and were donated by Mrs. Richard Ridell. Her collection reflects the inquisitive passion she had for historic ephemera, and greatly enriches the depth of our knowledge about the valentine from its English and Austrian origins.

An exquisite example of a double cobweb is this single-sheet valentine with a picturesque landscape scene in hand-colored lithography, containing a Venetian-style bridge, a romantic canopied gondola, and a stairway leading directly from the water to the church on the right. Drawings of pansies and roses further decorate the page and add to its romantic visual messages. The center has been hand-cut into a double cobweb, positioned one within the other.

The cut cobweb lifts open to reveal an image of Cupid presenting a heart-"Love's Medicine," as the inscription explains-to a woman reclining inside the gondola. A second, smaller cobweb is located inside the larger one, and is exposed only upon lifting the first. A man is depicted helping a woman disembark from a boat as they are guided by Cupid to the Altar of Love. A cherub soars above carrying the flaming torch of Hymen, the god of marriage.

Tarnished and spotted by age, this is definitely a hidden treasure and a spectacular game of love. The silver disc, once shiny, was machine-cut into a cobweb. The surprise occurs when the tasseled thread attached to the top center is gently pulled. Two images appear, one beneath the other. The silver circle lifts to reveal its cobweb, and that, in turn, reveals a golden disc, from which is suspended yet another cobweb. The top image is a hand-colored lithograph of a woman with butterfly wings holding a bouquet. The second image shows a man standing behind a seated woman; he appears to be looking at a locket in his right hand. Double cobwebs are a rarity, and this mechanism is incredibly unique.

It is easy to understand why today's collectors covet these cobweb valentines. Far from being ephemeral trifles, these were cherished mementos, and to many collectors like myself, their tactile quality is a very personal connection to history, individuals, and the sentimental past. It is wonderful to see that The Met recognizes the value of this material, not only as popular culture, but also as an art form that reflects an important aspect of our social history.

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Valentine's Day and the Romance of Cobwebs

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Among the many works on paper in The Met's Department of Drawings and Prints is a large collection of historic valentines from Europe and the United States. In paper form, these tokens of love are known from the 17th century onwards, and were either handmade or, from the mid-18th century onwards, produced as commercial products by printmakers and manufacturers of paper goods.