“To My Love...” Victorian Valentines

Pleasant wit, and harmless fun
And a dance when day is done,
Music friends so true and tried,
Whisper love by warm fireside...
    Alfred Dommett, 1811-1887

Perhaps no momento captures the essence of an entire era like the valentine does for the Victorians. It was one of the few tokens that could be exchanged between men and women freely, and amid the lace, flowers, glitter, tinsel, feathers and fringe, a hopeful young lady could judge the sincerity of her suitors.

Until the early 19th century, valentines were primarily handwritten love letters. But as printing techniques became more developed, the valentine business boomed. During the 1830’s, a London printing firm, Addenbrooke, discovered while embossing paper how to fashion it to resemble lace. Collectors of valentines consider the period between 1840 and 1860 to be the “Golden Age of Valentines”. This is because during this time the printing of “chromolithography” was perfected, allowing a huge assortment of full color and decorative designs called chromos.

With both paper lace and chromo cut-out of cherubs, cupids, flowers and hearts, commercial valentines began to flourish. Soon the embossed and lace paper became layered, folded, honeycombed, and held together with accordion-pleated hinges for three-dimensional valentines. They were limited only by the sender’s imagination and hold the power still to amuse, entertain and delight.

The Dacotah Prairie Museum is fortunate to have a lavish collection of Victorian valentines which stand up, pop up, have movable parts, and of course, are filled with hearts, cupids and sentiments. The second floor of the Museum hosted the exhibit called “To My Love...Victorian Valentines." Many of our vintage valentines were on display and added to visitors'
Valentine’s Day pleasure.

To view other past exhibits, please click here.