Inside the origins of modern Valentine's Day celebrations
The history of Valentine's Day is mushy.
It's been linked to a 12th-century poem about birds mating, the Christian-martyr-turned-Saint Valentine and a deadly fertility ritual in ancient Rome, but Elizabeth Nelson, an associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, thinks that's all a stretch.
"We want there to be an origin," Nelson said. "We don't want this to be just a holiday invented by Hallmark."
It wasn't.
Where did modern Valentine's Day traditions come from?
"The history of Valentine's Day that Americans sort of adopt and enjoy is the history that comes from England," Nelson said.
Samuel Pepys, an English businessman and politician, wrote about Valentine's Day in the 15th century. Here's an excerpt from his diary:
"So up I went and took Mrs. Martha for my Valentine (which I do only for complacency), and Sir W. Batten he go in the same manner to my wife, and so we were very merry."
"Those diary entries get entered into the history as evidence of its ancient origin," Nelson said.
"One of the things that's interesting about how Valentine's Day was celebrated then is that even married people are having valentines who aren't their spouses," Nelson said. "It really seems like a kind of ritual of friendship rather than a kind of make-or-break romantic love holiday."
In America, interest in the holiday continued as a way of belonging.
"As Americans, we're torn between our insistence that we are no longer English because of the American Revolution, but then we are in love with all things English," she said.
Valentine's Day in the U.S.
There are examples of Valentine's Day being celebrated in 18th-century America.
"We have some very beautiful examples of handmade valentines, particularly from the Pennsylvania Dutch country," Nelson said, "Sort of puzzle valentines, like where you unfold and unpack."
Nelson says that once stationers began to print in the early part of the 19th century, the holiday started to kick off as we recognize it now.
"Esther Howland, for example, creates Valentines that are kind of layers of lace paper and little printed images and all kinds of beautiful sort of 3D effects, which are very popular kind of after 1850," Nelson said.
Howland, the daughter of a Massachusetts stationer, is known as the "mother of the American valentine," according to Mount Holyoke College, where she went to college in the 1840s.
"She started making these valentines in her family parlor, hired a whole bunch of local girls to help her, and sent them around with her brothers who were traveling salesmen," Nelson said.
By the 1870s, Holland built a business to admire, but when her father grew sick, she sold it to entrepreneur George Whitney.
"She really kind of defined the aesthetic of when we think of Victorian valentines," Nelson said.
The 19th century also helped establish valentines from secret admirers — and saw Valentine's Day haters emerge.
"One of the things that makes what you feel about the valentine complicated is if it's an anonymous valentine, which becomes a convention in the 19th century," Nelson said. "If you know who the valentine is from, you might feel one thing. If you don't know who it's from, you might feel another."
That's especially true if the anonymous messages are sour.
"People start to make and send what are called 'vinegar valentines' or 'cruel valentines,' which are usually little poems that say mean things about people," Nelson said. "They are usually printed in a very cheap way. The crudest possible engravings, they'll have a little poem making fun of various character flaws or other things like that."
What are Americans doing for Valentine's Day in 2025?
Clever and crude valentines persist, but romance and friendship still prevail on the holiday.
For Vanna Black, an Atlanta-based artist, Valentine's Day is about reflection and celebration.
"Especially in today's time, what we're dealing with in the American society I think that spreading this type of love is going to be very meaningful and draw community together," Black said.
It's a grave mission for Black, who grieves every Feb. 14 for her mother, who died on the day in 1999.
"This time was always very difficult for me to kind of process grief," Black said. "My mom, she was always very encouraging of me doing my art."
This year, Black sold her art at Boggs Social & Supply in southwest Atlanta for a Valentine's Day pop-up. The vendors included a sculptor, a florist and a woman selling odd jewelry that included animal bones turned into pendants, and other gory pieces reminiscent of the carnivalesque aspects of Victorian times.
Boggs is a dark space and a clean slate for community artists to fill with life, so it served Black's pieces well. Her colorful cards and posters radiated her refreshing messages, such as "We have everlasting love" and "Celebrating you." Another design exclaimed, "You are the prettiest flower of them all."
"I wanted to be able to honor her in that way," Black said. "I had to figure out how to turn it around into something positive versus something negative."
Valentine's Day inspires "Galentine's Day"
Around Valentine's Day, "Galentines" groups of friends, women and sometimes men who are single, take a moment to spend time together and celebrate their platonic loved ones — typically on Feb. 13 — taking their inspiration from an episode of the sitcom "Parks and Recreation."
Businesses have taken notice of the trend and are catering to those who want to take part in a real-life version of the celebration.
This year, jewelry designer Malik Waseem Shuler of Urbane Jewelry Studio is leading a Galentine's jewelry-making happy hour at Atlanta's "Kitty Dare" Mediterranean-inspired restaurant that will incorporate crystals.
"It's the beginning of a crazy year," Schuler said. "I think that a lot of people could use some positive energy."
Shuler wants all kinds of relationships to be cherished and nurtured this Valentine's Day – a sentiment that has been growing in popularity.
"A lot of times our friends are in our lives longer than a romantic partner maybe," Shuler said. "So I'm going to be leading the workshop and helping people set intentionality behind their crystals and the unique pieces that they're making."
"I'm gonna be bringing lots of rose quartz to attract love. I have garnet, I have some obsidian stones for protection against negative energies. We have amethyst known to bring peace and tranquility into the space," Shuler said.
No matter its origin, Valentine's Day still celebrates friendship and romance, and even if the holiday currently seems to lean toward gifts over other love languages, it keeps bringing Americans together.
"There's a commercial side of Valentine, but then there's also the humanistic side of Valentine where love is 365," Vanna Black said. "It doesn't end, it doesn't stop, it's always growing. Love is everlasting."
