According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.)
Approximately 85 percent of all valentines are purchased by women.
In addition to the United States, Valentine’s Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.
Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages (written Valentine’s didn’t begin to appear until after 1400), and the oldest known Valentine card is on display at the British Museum. The first commercial Valentine’s Day greeting cards produced in the U.S. were created in the 1840s by Esther A. Howland. Howland, known as the Mother of the Valentine, made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as “scrap”.
Every February, across the country, candy, flowers, and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint and why do we celebrate this holiday? The history of Valentine’s Day — and its patron saint — is shrouded in mystery. But we do know that February has long been a month of romance. St. Valentine’s Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. So, who was Saint Valentine and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? Today, the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred.
One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men — his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.
Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured.
According to one legend, Valentine actually sent the first ‘valentine’ greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl — who may have been his jailor’s daughter — who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed ‘From your Valentine,’ an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure. It’s no surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France.
St Valentine’s Day was noticed by one William Shakespeare who mentions it in Ophelia’s lament in Hamlet: “To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,/All in the morning betime,/And I a maid at your window,/To be your Valentine
Mid-18th century
The passing of love-notes becomes popular in England, a precursor to the St Valentine’s Day card as we know it today. Early ones are made of lace and paper. In 1797, the The Young Man’s Valentine Writer is published, suggesting appropriate rhymes and messages, and as postal services became more affordable, the anonymous St Valentine’s Day card became possible. By the early 19th century, they become so popular that factories start to mass-produce them.
AD 1847
Following the English tradition, Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts, starts producing cards – using the newly available and much cheaper paper lace – in the United States.
AD 1913
If you felt cynical, you might call this date the beginning of the end for St Valentine’s Day as a genuinely romantic event, and the start of its reinvention of a savagely imposed regime of sugar-coated tweeness designed to chisel spare cash out of lovers and would-be lovers worldwide: Hallmark Cards produce their first Valentine. Now the date is the flagship “Hallmark Holiday” – together with Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day and so on, a series of celebrations notable more for the need to spend money than any heartfelt sentiment.
AD 1929 The St Valentine’s Day Massacre. A savage and bloody event in itself – five Chicago gangsters lined up and murdered with machine guns, apparently at the behest of Al Capone – but at least it’s a break from the unending stream of saccharine that the history of St Valentine’s Day otherwise entails, and so is welcome here.
Mid-1980s
The commercialisation continues: noting the sales effect of the holiday on chocolate, flowers and cards, the diamond industry gets involved, promoting St Valentine’s Day as a time for giving jewellery. The “tradition” takes off.
AD 2009
Valentine’s Day generates an estimated $14.7 billion (£9.2 billion) in retail sales in the United States.
AD 2010 An estimated 1 billion St Valentine’s Day cards will be sent worldwide this year, making it the second most card-heavy celebration after Christmas
Read more facts and figures:
http://www.history.com/content/valentine/history-of-valentine-s-day
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/relationships/valentines-day/7187784/History-of-Valentines-Day.html
