Each year on February 14th many Americans celebrate a day of sharing love and affections with those of whom they care about most. Since we were children, we have come accustomed to the commercialized Valentine’s Day, taking little pause to truly contemplate from where this holiday derives. There is a cloud of mystery and legend surrounding Valentine’s Day, furthermore, the names of Christian martyrs and pagan festivals most often being used when detailing this diverse history. By analyzing and describing a brief history of Valentine’s Day, we may have a better appreciation for this now predominantly, “Hallmark” holiday.

The history of Valentine’s Day centers around three Christian martyrs and the Christianization of the pagan holiday Lupercalia. There were three early Christian martyrs by the name of Valentine. There was Valentine of Rome (martyrdom AD 269), the Valentine of Terni (martyrdom AD 197), and also a third Saint named Valentine martyred in Africa. Throughout history, these martyrs, who are now also legends, have come to be known as one person in the same. Thus, the legend follows as such; during the 3rd Century in failing Rome, Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than married ones, therefore outlawing marriage. Valentine, a priest at this time, felt that the law was absurd and continued to marry couples in private. After being caught in performing these marriages, Valentine was condemned, thrown in prison, and sentenced to death. Some legends say he was burned at the stake, while others say that he was beheaded on February 14th. According to legend, while in prison Valentine actually sent the first ‘Valentine’ greeting. Valentine was able to cure the jailer’s daughter of her blindness and from that point they fell deeply in love. Her love and affections were not able to save him though. On the eve of execution, Valentine wrote her a love letter, singed ‘From your Valentine;’ this expression is still used today. Many believe then, that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death.

The story of St. Valentine is only part of the history of Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day also centers on the Christianization of the pagan Lupercalia Festival. The ancient Roman’s celebrated the feast of Lupercalia, a spring festival celebrated on February 15, held in honor of the god’s Faunus, Romulus, Remus, and Juno Februata. In ancient Rome, February was considered the official beginning of spring and also a time for purification. The festival was also used as a time to meet a prospective mate. As Christianity’s influence grew in Rome, pagan festivals like Lupercalia were Christianized. In AD 496, Pope Gelasius I outlawed the festival and declared February 14 as “Valentine’s Day.” Pope Gelasius I needed a “lovers” saint to replace the pagan Gods; therefore, he chose Valentine the Christian martyr who had been killed on the eve of the Lupercalia festival nearly two hundred years previous. At this juncture, the legends and mysteries of Valentine’s Day join to commemorate St. Valentine, while also retaining elements of the Lupercalia festival.

The Valentine’s Day we celebrate today is filled with much more mystery, love, death, and religion than is to be expected. The origins of this now commercialized holiday reveal the true essence of this holiday. Valentine’s Day should not only be a day to share your affection with loved ones, it should also be a day where people take pause to remember the complex history of a holiday that extends hundreds of years into our own cultural history.


This Experience

Writing a factual, reliable, and enjoyable history of Valentine’s Day using only free internet resources proved to be challenging, interesting, and enlightening. The main issues I encountered on this assignment where the reliability of sources, the contradictions of facts among the sources, and the extent to which there were volumes of information to digest.

Most of the websites I viewed for this assignment did not cite from where they were retrieving their information. It is quite possible the information on these sites was factual, yet without footnotes or in-text citations, the reliability and validity of their histories is compromised. It is alarming to think that much of the general public is reading these sources without questioning their validity. Although this does not apply to the entire general public, many of the readers will not view these sites with an analytical, critical eye; instead they will digest these histories as fact, furthermore sharing these histories with anyone willing to listen.

Many of the Valentine’s Day histories I encountered contradicted one another. The names, dates, and concepts are thrown around, leading me to believe that nobody has a clear grasp on the history of Valentine’s Day. The history of Valentine’s Day is clouded in mystery; this may explain for the diversity of definitions and explanations of similar names, events, and festivals around this holiday.

The variations in histories could also be attributed to the extensive presence of Valentine’s Day in popular culture. There are thousands of resources online to view discussions and histories of this holiday. The availability of resources may prove to be both positive and negative. It forces the audience to sort through hundred of sites; as we all know, this is not actually going to happen, therefore a lot of false sites are going to receive unwarranted attention. With so much information, which sites do you trust and use?

It was fascinating to see how many sites presented histories on Valentine’s Day. By reading a multitude of sites, you begin to see where authors have synthesized their own version of the history of Valentine’s Day; leaving out some facts, while adding in others. Presumably this is such the case with any history that is written, yet with the accessibility of information becoming so extensive with the internet, the visibility and usability of these abridged histories becomes that much greater; furthermore, that much more of a problem.

This experience has made me more appreciative of certain historical databases. As a graduate student, they indeed save you time from sorting through unreliable sources. With history databases you are confident that the sources are legitimate, once again saving you time. This experience also reinforces the idea that the “general public” is indeed interested in history. If people were not interested in history, there would not be the hundreds of websites that I encountered for this topic. The prevalence and existence of histories on almost any given topic further supports this argument. It is our responsibility, as academic scholars, to make all attempts to increase visibility, usability, and accessibility to histories that are factual, reliable, and enjoyable to read. This is our duty as public historians in the digital age.

In the 21st Century, one of the most effective ways for historians to convey their ideas, scholarly works, or exhibits and collections to a broad audience is through the use of a website. The ways in which an individual website operates and presents information determines if the website is effective in capturing visitor’s attention and imagination. The New York Historical Society, a long established society and institution, has joined the modern age with its very own website. By analyzing the website’s usability, content, scholarship, presentation, and use of new media, one can determine the effectiveness of this site.

Upon visiting the New York Historical Society’s website, the first thing you encounter is a unique, unconventional menu page. Although the site receives points for originality, the vertically laid out menu options, with hard a difficult to view color scheme, forces the visitor to actually tilt their head in order to make a selection. The color scheme also makes this initial selection process difficult. Once past this problematic menu page, the rest of the site follows conventional menu and page layout methods. The site then becomes very easy to navigate and the form is extremely clear. Certain pages though, like their online database sites designed for locating digitized primary sources, are a bit confusing and could use some additional attention. The site promotes a sense of consistency by using the same color scheme, the same layout styles, and by having the New York Historical Society emblem located at the top of each webpage. The minimal amount of advertisements allows the visitor to believe that the site’s purpose is pure and directed solely by the mission of the New York Historical Society. The style and form of their website creates an accessible platform for a broad audience of internet users.

The New York Historical Society has an extremely diverse target audience. The well written site aims to reach educators, school children, college students, scholars, general interest viewers and also New York City tourists. This stated, the site offers a little bit of something for everyone. Educators will find content specific digital projects for use in their classroom, while general interest viewers and tourists will find current exhibitions, upcoming events, and podcast downloads available for their visit to New York City. All of this information is available, while scholars can browse primary sources and set up appointments to conduct research at the New York Historical Society Library. With such an extensive range in audience aim, purpose, and appeal, the New York Historical Society does an exemplary job of making the site accessible and useful to almost anyone.

As a history site, not a tourist destination, the site offers a shell of all of the historical scholarship available at the New York Historical Society. A bulk of the site gives you short descriptions of exhibits, collections, and of recent historical speakers’ presentations. The site works as a teaser; its prompts the viewer to dig further into topics of interest and to possibly even physically visit the society in New York City. As a research site, once again the site works as a teaser. You may browse the databases, their library, and many of their exhibits, but the extent to which you can really learn about these sources is limited. By setting up an appointment with the Collections Manager and by physically going to New York City, then yes, the visitor may take full advantage of the collections; for the purposes of the website though, many of the collections feel inaccessible.

There are though, certain topic specific websites sponsored in affiliation with the New York Historical Society, that offer a plethora of primary sources, historical interpretation, and new media presentations all using the resources of the New York Historical Society. These sites, which include Marion Mahony Griffin’s The Magic of America, Examination Days: The New York African Free School Collection , and the American Revolution Digital Learning Project, would be fascinating to the general viewer, as well to researchers and teachers. Due to the extensive amount of humanities scholarship the society is involved with, having these links may be the most effective way to present their extensive contribution to historical scholarship. These links point visitors to additional sources and also exemplify the society’s promotion of community interest and involvement.

The site uses a mixture of new media intermixed with classic textual presentation. There are podcast downloads, next to more detailed textual essays; there are digitized galleries followed by textual descriptions. If you browse long enough, there is a form of new media appropriate for almost any viewer. Their Media Center offers a range of podcast interviews with conversations and lectures by curators, authors, and historians. In displaying one of their latest exhibitions, Audubon’s Aviary: Portraits of Endangered Species, the site visitor is able to download an MP3 clip of the bird’s chirp. They may not be able to do this at the actual gallery; therefore the online exhibition is extremely useful. The use of MP3 clips helps bring to life the paintings and to further interest the site visitor.

The site does an exemplary job of organizing a vast institution that is involved with multiple layers of academia, community, society, and current events. Organizing such a site, while maintaining aesthetic appeal, visitor usability, and scholarly presentations, is quite an accomplishment. Although the site has some weak areas, overall, the quality of the site will continue to uphold the respected legacy of the New York Historical Society.