Pop-up Valentine, c. 1907
The Peabody Historical Society has an extensive collection of antique and vintage holiday greeting cards and postcards. Our antique Valentines are particularly charming, not just for their illustrations, but for their provenance. Most of the Valentines are from the schoolchildren of Peabody. Boys gave them to girls, and vice versa. Girls gave them to each other, and, in a tradition indicative of a bygone era, boys gave them to each other too. Many of the Valentines retain their original handwritten messages, rendered in pencil or pen and ink in shaky, childish handwriting, the art of writing in cursive not yet fully mastered.
The girl in a pink dress (above) is a pop-up Valentine. The base with the message pulls down, which enables the figure of the girl to stand up with the aid of a cardboard support in back. The heart she holds opens up to reveal a love poem. Pop-up Valentines were popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many of them were very elaborate, with as many as three or four layers that stood upright when the base lay flat.
The Valentine from 1923 (below) features a tiny calendar for the year, still intact. The style of illustration is already moving away from the high-style, very detailed illustrations of the Victorian and Edwardian eras towards the simpler, more modern style of illustration of the Modern Age.
Valentine with Calendar, 1923
The tradition of children giving Valentines to each other at school still exists, but perhaps not to the extent that it did one hundred years ago. To be sure, the quality and charm of paper Valentines has certainly suffered over the past several decades compared to the ornate and very detailed Valentines of the turn of the last century.
Facebook fans of the Peabody Historical Society can visit our Peabody Historical Society Valentines gift application page to send their Facebook friends a variety of our antique and vintage Valentines.