Non-Stop New York Valentines

She wore an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny 14-karat band from Tiffany
That she swore she could never betray.
But when he sent an itsy-bitsy red sportscar from New York City,
In his apartment she wanted to stay!

[ -- sung to the tune of "Itsy-Bitsy, Teeny-Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" -- ]

"Eat Me!"

Read about the history of Valentine's Day [below].
Discover what handmade cards used to be like -- and who made the first commercial Valentine and how much money she made.
Send a sweetheart a free Valentine online!
Meet: Bad Girl of the Moment
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. There are
over one-hundred ways to say this in every one of the foreign languages spoken
in Non-Stop New York. Curious? Click here and find out.

Valentine's Day is loosely connected with the ancient Roman holiday, Lupercalia, celebrated on February 15th. Rome's earliest inhabitants were shepherds who shared the wilderness with wolf packs. Not surprisingly, these pastoral people worshipped a deity named Lupercus, who watched over shepherds and flocks. This festival took place in an era before calendars -- before the month of February even existed.

Each spring, the Luperci priests gathered at the cave of Lupercal to honor twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, who (according to legend), were nursed by a mother wolf. Another ritual of Lupercalia honored a rural god Faunus who, like the Greek god Pan, was a god of crops and herds. This ceremony involved animal sacrifice and the animals' blood was smeared on the foreheads of young boys of noble birth. The boys were then ordered to run through the streets, laughing out loud and lashing anyone they encountered with thongs made from the hides, called februa.

Young women reportedly welcomed the lashes, known as februatio, believing this ritual would assure fertility. The month of February came from these words, which mean to purify. Long after Rome had become a powerful empire, Lupercalia continued to be an important festival -- except its focus evolved, switching devotions to a more popular female deity. It was now Juno, the goddess of women and marriage, who would be honored on February 15th with a lottery where boys and girls were paired. Names of maidens were placed in a box or vase and were drawn by young men. The two were then considered partners for the festival's duration, sometimes for an entire year. Often the pairing resulted in love and marriage for the young couple.

Histories differ but most scholars agree that Lupercalia was christianized by moving the celebration to February 14th and associating it with Saint Valentine. Which St. Valentine remains a mystery. One opinion is that he was a Roman martyred for refusing to give up his Christian faith. Other historians hold that St. Valentine was a temple priest jailed for defiance during the reign of Claudius. Whoever he was, Valentine really existed because archaeologists have unearthed a Roman catacomb and an ancient church dedicated to Saint Valentine. In 496 AD Pope Gelasius marked February 14th as a celebration in honor of his martyrdom.

Verses and romantic greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, when lovers said or sang their valentines. Written valentines began to appear after 1400. The oldest "valentine" in existence was made in the 1400s; it's in the British Museum. In 1537, King Henry the Eighth declared that February 14 was "Saint Valentine's Day" by Royal Charter.

By the 18th century, British sweethearts were exchanging hand-crafted greeting cards; these grew in popularity and were given in place of valentine gifts. The French were trimming their oversized paper hearts with yards and yards of real lace. Early valentines were homemade, fashioned by hand with colored paper, watercolors, and colored inks. In America, Valentine's Day did not become a tradition until around the Civil War [1861-65].

Finally, love went retail. Miss Esther Lowland is credited with developing the first commercial valentines. She is reputed to have earned $5,000 her first year in business. This was in the 1840s when $5,000 was a great deal of money. More elaborate cards began to be produced at home -- garnished with satin ribbons, spun glass, lace, dried flowers, mother-of-pearl trinkets -- then sold in stores. Valentine's Day became so popular it rivalled Christmas for expense and attention.

Handmade valentines varied. They included:
Acrostic valentines: verses whose first lines spelled out a beloved's name;
Cut-out valentines: made by folding the paper several times, then cutting out a lacelike design with small, sharp, pointed scissors;
Pinprick valentines: made by pricking tiny holes in a paper with a pin or needle to create the look of lace;
Theorem or Poonah valentines: designs that were painted through a stencil cut in oil paper, a style that came from the Orient;
Rebus valentines: verses in which tiny pictures take the place of some of the words (for example, an eye would take the place of the word "I");
Puzzle Purse valentines: a folded puzzle to read and refold. Among their many folds were verses that had to be read in a certain order;
Fraktur valentines: had ornamental lettering in the style of the medieval illuminated manuscripts.

Eventually, valentines began to be mass-assembled in a plant. Early manufactured valentines were black and white pictures, painted by factory workers. Fancy valentines were made with real lace and ribbons; paper lace was introduced later in the 1800s. By the late 1800s, valentines were being made entirely by machine. In the early 1900s, a card company named Norcross began to produce valentines.
Hallmark owns a collection of rare antique valentines and occasionally displays them.

Who's This Cupid Fellow, Then?
His name Cupid is derived from Latin -- Cupido -- a personification of cupido, meaning desire. He was the Roman God of Love, and is usually identified with Eros, his Greek equivalent, from whose name comes the word erotic.

Cupid's arrows come in two varieties:
Cupid's Golden Arrow generally refers to true love while Cupid's Leaden Arrow represents wanton, sensual passion.

History of Valentine's Day -- Encyclopedias

De Paola, Tomie; Things to Make and Do for Valentine's Day
Dorling Kindersley; The Visual Dictionary of the Human Body
Greene, Carol; Holidays Around the Worlds
Martignoni, Margaret; Harvest of Holidays, The Young Folks Shelf of Books

Love is grand in New York City, home to 1,001+ all-night flower-stands. And if flowers be the food of romance, New Yorkers shall never go hungry. Many exotic floral species, whose botanical names you probably never tried to pronounce, are for sale round-the-clock in front of any Korean greengrocer. Well, if you have the time, Non-Stop New York has the meanings of most of them.

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