Who made the first Valentine’s Day greeting card in America?
The inventor of the first American Valentine’s Day greeting card, Esther Howland, was probably more of a businesswoman than a romantic. Never married, Howland saw the moneymaking potential in such greetings. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, she received her first Valentine from an English friend of her father’s and was inspired to make her own. She imported embossed lacy paper and other stationery from England and started creating handmade designs. They were an instant hit. Howland got so many orders, she needed to enlist the help of friends. Eventually, her business went on to make $100,000 a year. See one of her handmade Valentines here. Source: Emotioncards.com 5. Why do we buy red roses? Red has long symbolized passion. Legend has it that Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love and Beauty, favored red roses. Over time, the red rose became linked with passion, romance and – of course – true love. Since then, different colored flowers have been associated with different emotions. For ex
Valentines cards were popular from as far back as the 1400s. Paper Valentine cards were given to lovers in Europe in place of Valentine’s Day gifts. Esther Howland in 1850 was the first to publish and sell Valentine’s Day cards. She was an American printer and artist and produced valentines like the one to the left.
In the 1900s, Norcross started manufacturing valentines. They were an american card company.
The first known Valentine greeting in America was a poem, written by LtCol John Graves Simcoe, of the Queens Rangers on February 14, 1778 to Miss Sarah Townsend, at Oyster Bay,. New York.
Lt Col Simcoe was a Royalist soldier, Sarah was a secret American patriot, still a teenager. Simcoe was quartered in her family’s home. Sarah never married, but kept the Valentine in her possession long after the American Revolution was over, and it was discovered amoung her possessions after her death of old age. The text of the poem made reference to the war and her beauty, and it may be found in the book "Sally Townsend, Patriot".
