By the middle of the eighteenth century, expensive gifts became less the upper class norm, giving way to the increasingly popular exchange of simpler tokens and letters of love as practiced at lower social class levels. By century’s end, printed messages began to replace the handwritten letter, and this mass-produced form boomed with the advent of the penny post in Britain.

Although popular in this mass-mediated form in the nineteenth century in Britain, enthusiasm for Valentine’s Day seemed to wane over the years, even as it was embraced in America. In the early 1700s, Americans made relatively fancy valentines by hand for exchange with their loved ones. By the 1800s, the business of making valentines and fancy envelopes had become a profitable sideline for the publishing and printing industry.

Firms such as the George C. Whitney Company encouraged an American expansion of valentine exchange to include good friends as well as lovers. This significantly increased the number of cards sold. Further fueled by the U.S. Postal Service, the American school system which institutionalized the custom of bringing valentines to school to exchange with teachers and classmates, and the advent of the Hallmark Greeting Card Company in 1910 in Kansas City the holiday flourished. American cultural expressions of friendship, love, and affection most often took the form of cards and token gifts of flowers and candy. For lovers, perhaps, it was something more daring: champagne or even, in our modern observance, lacy, see-through lingerie.

Throughout the long history of observance in Continental Europe, Great Britain, and America, the core concept around Valentine’s Day gift giving has remained pretty much the same. This is, especially for Americans, a day of reciprocity based on the exchange of tokens and messages of affection and love by both men and women.

-G.H.L

Curated by Erbe
Original Article