A 1200-word commissioned article on the history of mock, mocking 'vinegar' valentine cards for Who Do You Think You Are (Britain's bestselling family history magazine) in a special February 2025 edition, free for Apple News subscribers

Pollen, Annebella

English

University of Brighton Research Portal

Tough Love: The Dark Heart of Valentine’s Day Annebella Pollen Commissioned article for Who Do You Think You Are magazine / Apple News  February 2025  The 14th of February is a cherished event for ardent lovers and secret admirers alike. Sweet missives, featuring hearts and flowers, can praise, puzzle and tease. It has long been this way: the saint’s day was associated with mating birds by the poet Geoffrey Chaucer in the fourteenth century, and gift-giving rituals were recorded by diarist Samuel Pepys in the seventeenth. The Victorians stepped up handmade traditions with mass-produced lacy, perfumed and gilded cards available in abundant styles. From the 1840s to the 1880s, the greetings card heyday, manufacturers offered ‘Valentines by the Million’ to serve a wide range of senders and recipients, and to cover a wide range of emotions. An 1847 list of types advertised by A.S. Jordan, an American importer of British valentines, boasted: Comic, Sentimental, Lovesick, Acrostic, Funny, Burlesque, Curious, Characteristic, Humorous, Beautiful, Heart-struck, Witty, Arabesque, Courting, Serio-Comical, Bewitching, Poetical, Heart-rending, Love-encouraging, Trifling, Caricature, Heart-piercing, Serio-tragical, Laughable, Silly, Spiteful, Original, Enlivening, Heart-aching, Despairing, Raving-mad, Heart-killing, High-flown, Lampooning, Romantic, Lookout, Proposal, Espousal, Matrimonial, Hen-Pecking, Suicidal, and many other varieties. Heart-rending and heart-killing, spiteful and suicidal valentines are perhaps the most intriguing on that list, because nineteenth-century cards were not only produced to foster affection but also, more surprisingly, to repel enemies. An unwanted suitor might receive an example showing them receiving a bucket of cold water in the face. Through cruel caricature and mocking verse, a sharp-tongued woman might be described as ‘nasty old cat, and many things a deal ruder than that’, to quote a card from the 1880s. These distinctive cards, described in their own time as comic, mock or mocking valentines, are now known by collectors as vinegar valentines. Their name fits them well. Sour rather than sweet, bitter rather than beautiful, they left a nasty taste in the mouth of those unlucky enough to receive them. In a time when the recipient had to pay for post on arrival, the insult would stung them all the more. How Do I Hate Thee? Let Me Count the Ways Insulting valentine cards were not a nineteenth-century niche offer. They were enormously popular and even outnumbered their more refined and pricey sentimental counterparts. There were abundant slurs to choose from, and as cards typically depicted their recipient, their array of targets was wide. The Library Company of Philadelphia, for example, holds a selection, compiled by the nineteenth-century collector John A. McAllister, of 645 variants produced between 1840 and 1880. Insulting valentines addressed liars and flirts, drinkers and deceivers, the pompous and the vain. An 1881 American Valentine catalogue by Stirn and Lyon, New York, boasted an even larger collection, ordered by category. They included 72 types of ‘Refined Comics’, described as ‘delicate and intended only for the virtuous – those who have no small vices; refined people who cannot take large doses of satire. They are free from coarseness and vulgarity, but are keen in satire and artistic in execution.’ A further category of ‘Ordinary Comics’ totalled 500. They were said to ‘hit the mark every time; and if they do not mortally wound…they lop off moral excrescences and aid in the mending of a dilapidated character.’ The final group was entitled ‘Hit-Em-Hard’ and comprised 96 types. The catalogue stated, ‘If a two-year-old colt kicks, it hurts; but when a big ten-year-old mule strikes out, it is no laughing matter. These Hit-Em-Hards are our ten-year-old mules, and they kick straight at the weaknesses of poor humanity.’ How might it have felt to be kicked hard by a card of this kind? There are accounts in the press on both sides of the Atlantic that charted reactions, which could be violent. Court cases detail the rage and revenge that resulted. Punches were thrown and weapons raised. Some reports were tragic. In 1847, Margaret Craig, a servant in New York City, committed suicide by overdosing on laudanum after receiving a mean valentine from a man who had led her to believe that he was interested. Memoirs also document recipients’ reactions, and these include feelings of shame. The British author Flora Thompson, a postmistress who saw these cards regularly in the late century, received one that was aimed at her professional identity with a verse about her fearful ugliness. She threw it in the fire and only wrote about it publicly many years later. Cruel valentines were not items to be cherished and pressed into an album. Many were likely to be torn into shreds or otherwise destroyed. It is notable that surviving examples in museum collections tend to be unused samples compiled by stationers. Lovers and rogues Who sent them? Although the culture of greetings cards is perceived as feminine, men as well as women hurled insulting valentines — and were hit by them. Many cards are misogynistic, commenting negatively on female bodies, and viciously denouncing women for perceived shortcomings in their looks, dress and manners. But men were also regularly lampooned for social transgressions, including behaviours that we might celebrate today, such as taking a share of infant care and domestic duties. These practices signalled weakness in the eyes of valentine producers, and the ‘hen-pecked man’ was vilified as effeminate.  Vicious valentines were designed not only to be sent between lovers (or haters) but also to neighbours, teachers, traders and employers. No one was safe. Anyone might receive one and it could come from anyone. Like their tender counterparts, they were often sent unsigned, concealing the identity of the abuser. Because of this, they seem more like anonymous poison pen letters than love poems. Insulting valentines were cheap insults. They were sold in the lowliest of shops for the smallest of coins. They were roughly printed on thin paper using coarse techniques. Materially and symbolically, they represented the opposite of their refined, elegant and ornate counterparts. As a result, they became associated with those deemed to be rough and coarse in the social structures of the time, that is, those without money or education. This group was accused of cheapening the saint’s celebration. New York Tribune, for example, complained in 1848 that ‘the sweetness of St. Valentine’s old, romantic associations’ had been ‘nearly destroyed’ by that ‘numerous class of individuals whose tastes take the lowest forms of all prevailing fancies’. By the mid-nineteenth century, valentine mud-slinging practices were deeply embedded, however. Cultural commentators confirmed that valentine customs had ceased to be respectable’. Satire rather than sentiment was the order of the day. While some insulting valentines can be amusing, with a gentle humour that punctures pomposity, the most shocking examples are truly breathtaking. Some inform their victims that no one will ever love them. One instructs the recipient to thrown themselves under a train. For those who are nostalgic for the warm glow of a mythical past when people were kinder, insulting valentines offer an object lesson about human relationships including what changes and what stays the same. Look and learn from the bad behaviour of our forebears, the not-so-great grandfathers of today’s online trolls.  

Tough Love: The Dark Heart of Valentine's Day

https://cris.brighton.ac.uk/ws/files/54312772/WDYTYA_Pollen_Valentine_21-01-25.pdf

Tough Love: The Dark Heart of Valentine's Day

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