Hello. If you're sitting on valentine's day with significantly fewer cards and love letters than
you might like. Or, like me, none whatsoever, then let me offer you a crumb of comfort.
At least you're not Victorian and you've not received any of these.
These comic cards are known as "vinegar valentines" and like many Victorian inventions
they fill a niche that nobody in their right mind would think was even necessary, and that is...
Once you've sent pleasant romantic cards to all your suitors paramours and crushes,
what do you send to the people you hate? Well sensible people amongst you might say nothing
at all but that's just not the Victorian way. No! You send the vinegar valentine. These are a British
and American novelty. They could be picked up at most convenient outlets, most low-end stationers
and they would cost about a penny to buy and a penny to send. At least that's what they would
cost in 1840. If you were receiving one of these before 1840, and before the time of the Penny Black
then frankly you were not only being insulted, but you were paying for the postage as well.
Nnow some of them are just a good rebuke to an unwanted suitor. After all it's not like
harassment from men is something new. So you could get the message home by sending
something like this one here.. and a little poem on it would say "Tis a lemon that i hand you, and
bid you now skidoo, because i love another there is no chance for you!" A gentle let down
i'm sure you'll agree. not one that i'd want to pay the postage for mind, but gentle
and eloquent all the same. The trouble is they, like everything, can get nasty. Take a look at this one.
"Your bright shining pate is seen at all shows, and invariably down in the bald headed rows,
where you make conspicuous by your tender care, your true ardent love for that one lonesome hair."
Ouch! As a somewhat receding gentleman myself i'm feeling now rather hurt.
Way to crush a guy's self-confidence while you're at it there. Now women come off just
as badly as men in these as well. Often worse. If you troll through the archives
of these then you'll find there's a 60/40 split between women and men as targets for the abuse
and this itself is interesting. Scholars of card culture highlight that 80 percent of greeting
cards are bought and sent by women. Which means, approached mathematically, half of all vinegar
valentines could be being sent by women, to other women, and these were not just minority
sales either. Surveys show that they accounted for 50% of card sales across the UK and the US.
That's three quarters of a million abusive cards in Britain alone.
They're often targeted at people who are stepping outside the precise Victorian prim
standards. You could send them to ugly people, gossips, bad singers, drunkards, henpecked husbands,
even overly affectionate couples in love. But here are two cards that really caught my interest.
Yeah these are aimed at equality campaigners and at suffragettes. Take a look at that vile
poem on the right. "Your vote from me you will not get. I don't want a preaching suffragette."
I dare say she doesn't want you either sir!
Now vinegar valentines were condemned as the "morally reprehensible tool of the vulgar lower
classes". The New York Times in 1866 blamed them for the increase in swearing amongst men. But I'm not
convinced. I've grown up lived and worked in some fairly rough communities, and i didn't find the
people that passive-aggressive. When the situation called for conflict they'd be just aggressive
without feeling the need to hide behind things. And they wouldn't do so anonymously either. This
appears to be an attempt to put someone down from a veil behind the postal system, and that's just
not the lower class way. The vinegar valentine, in my view, is much more the preserve of the upwardly
mobile recent social climber. Very much a middle class thing. Now they're not without consequences,
In 1885 London's Pall Mall Gazette reported that a husband shot his estranged wife in the neck after
receiving a vinegar valentine that he could tell was from her, and there was a report of someone
committing suicide after receiving an insulting valentine. Which was not entirely surprising
considering that that's exactly what some of them, like this one here, suggested. Now they stayed with
us through the 1950s and although there are still some questionable joke cards available today, the
idea of the vinegar valentine has now beautifully died out. Possibly, however, having been replaced by
straightforward trolling. Today you can leave us a cutting remark in the comments below, or on Twitter
or on Facebook. But 150 years ago people have to buy the card and post it so please respect that,
and if you're going to leave as a cutting comment put some damned effort into it will you?
Thank you. Goodbye for now. Stay healthy and don't get lonely. Bye