The Origin of Valentine's Day -- Web Style

Having taken Valentine’s Day for granted for many years it came as a shock to me, as I surfed the web, to find that it was not the creation of Hallmark Cards, but a Roman pagan festival, Lupercalia. To be honest, I knew there was a Saint Valentine, in fact several, but I never really dug into the details before. It is a cautionary tale, filled with contradictions, as you will see. The web that is, not St. Valentine’s Day, which will likely survive the many contradictory and sometimes fanciful posts you can find.

Most sites agree that Valentine’s Day had an origin in Rome, and most likely was associated with a pagan holiday. There the trail becomes less clear. One site actually has several origins: “Originally the word Valentine meant the person whose name was picked from a box to be chosen as your sweetheart up until the 1500’s. Then around 1533 it meant the folded piece of paper with your sweetheart’s name on it.” http://www.brownielocks.com/valentinehistory.html The same site goes on to say that it may have originated in during the Roman invasion of France when Roman boys picked girls names from an urn. I guess it was like playing post office and a toga party all in one, but the connection to the French is a little vague.

Not all sites are quite as creative in their explanations. From http://www.history.com/minisites/valentine/viewPage?pageId=882 I learned the basics, the origins in Roman ritual, the existence of at least three Saints Valentine in Roman times, including a priest who defied Claudius’ decree that young men not marry because it weakened them as soldiers. Valentine conducted secret marriages and was condemned to death for the practice. While awaiting execution, so the story goes, he befriended his jailer’s daughter and sent her a love note before his death signed, your Valentine. Well, why not, it was his name, and so I expect she must have been the recipient of the first “Valentine.”

Some sites, including http://wilstar.com/holidays/valentn.htm and http://www.infoplease.com/spot/valentinesdayhistory.html give credit to Pope Gelasius I for introducing a Christian holiday to replace Lupercalia. The former had him suggesting children draw the names of saints from an urn instead of girls, and to spend the rest of the year emulating the saint they drew. The second site admits that no one really knows why the Holy Father picked Valentine, or which Valentine he picked.

Finally, to end my confusion I went to Wikipedia for the real answer. Actually their post, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine's_Day was quite informative. In short I feel confident that there is a Saint Valentine’s Day celebrated on February 14. I also am fairly sure that the exchanging of cards began in the 19^th century with handwritten notes, and now a billion cards a year are sent to commemorate it, and of course, love. It does have its origins in the pagan festival of Lupercalia, but the connection is one of timing, not intent. (This is not the only Roman pagan holiday that was adopted by Christians for very different celebrations) I didn’t find a single reference to roses though, or Chicago in the 1920’s in any of the sites I visited.

This exercise was educational in a practical way despite the tongue in cheek tone I adopted in writing about the origins of Valentine’s Day. It is a painless and amusing way to get to the crux of what Wikipedia and the open nature of the web is all about. The reason this is “a cautionary tale” is that I came upon so many unreferenced facts that were fanciful, or misconstrued by their authors. Anyone can post, and for advocates of free speech that is a noble end in itself.

However if you are a student, or a historian the lack of real editing is the other edge of the sword, and the core of the fight between Larry Sanger and Citizendium on the one hand and Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia on the other. I tend to side with the aim of Sanger to have a means of properly vetting the facts of a post, at the expense of having more posts. Wikipedia has, without doubt, cleaned up its act considerably in the last two years, but problems remain.

It may well be that the price we pay for having the internet is learning to take anything that seems nonsensical as just that, nonsense, until proven otherwise. I have been cautioned times without number to know my sources. On the web, frequently that is not really possible. I deliberately chose sites to cite that were funny rather than accurate, but in terms of scholarship that lack of rigor is a real barrier to using net material. I suppose we will simply have to wait and see how the medium develops.

Website Evaluation: The Bisbee Deportation of 1917 A University of Arizona Web Exhibit

The subject of my evaluation is a history website created and maintained by the University of Arizona (http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/bisbee/history/index.html) It is somewhat unusual, in that its scope is a single historical event: the deportation of more than one thousand striking miners from the town of Bisbee, Arizona to Columbus, New Mexico in July of 1917.

It is necessary to say a few words about the event so that the significance of the site can be appreciated. Copper’s importance as a raw material, rising due to the expanding need for wire to support electrification and the telephone, took a leap in value with the coming of the First World War. America’s entry into the war made it a critical strategic material at home as well. It is not surprising that the miners wanted what they considered their fair share of these rising profits. Adding fuel to the fire was the presence of organizers from the Industrial Workers of the World. A strike was called and the majority of miners honored the picket line. The managers of the mines appealed to the governor and the governor appealed to the federal government for assistance. As you will learn from the website what transpired was one of the strangest episodes in American labor history. After spending some time reviewing the materials, you will certainly agree.

The site is organized around five drop down menus: History; Primary Sources; Resources; Deportees; and Teacher’s Corner. The titles are generally self explanatory, but the designers intended, logically, for the visitor to move from left to right beginning with History which contains an overview of the event and a list of key participants (Who’s Who). The Primary Sources contain an outstanding and comprehensive collection of government and commercial documents, newspapers, photos and interviews. Resources includes contemporary and modern secondary sources, dissertation references, the sites single video, and most valuable the Library’s Finding Aid for the entire collection, which has links to the documents on-line. The Deportees section provides both a demographic breakdown of the miners that were deported as well as a list of them by name. The Teacher’s Corner is well organized and designed to allow a high school teacher to make full use of the site in the process of teaching students how to use historical materials.

All this is well and good, you say, but does it work? Evaluating the site on five criteria, Usability, Content, Scholarship, Presentation, and Use of New Media should allow an objective, or at least practical judgment. The site does have a clear organization, uncluttered with handy drop-down menus. Cross links are used extensively and allow navigation along a train of thought through the material with ease. What the site lacks is a map, which would be helpful, but it is not a show-stopper. On a one-to five scale I would rate Usability at 4.

Content stands out as the real strong suit of the site. The broad scope of the sources, many impossible to find elsewhere, is as good as any comparable site I have used. Bearing in mind that this event took place over a matter of days, not months or years, there is a limit to what is posted. This limit, however, has an advantage to the teacher who wants to introduce students to historical methods and how to use them without crushing them under a mass of sources. I give content a 5.

The scholarship is reflected in the broad content. Dealing with a controversial topic requires discipline, and this site does reflect that open-mindedness which is the hallmark of an objective historian. Scholarship and content in this context can get a little blurred. The breadth of content I mentioned is an indication of the level of scholarship employed in the site’s construction. If no new analysis was performed in this process that should not reduce our appreciation for the scholarly effort expended to assemble the material. I rate Scholarship at 4.5.

If there is room for improvement it lies in the Presentation of the material. While there is not much you can do with a newspaper article from 1917, the site itself is rather drab. Perhaps it is appropriate to use the pale pastel shades of sand in keeping with the southwest locale, but it is rather drab. Presentation rates only 3.5.

The site has a single video so the Use of New Media is not a high point. The strike did occur in 1917, and to the best of my knowledge no newsreel footage exists of the events in Bisbee, so there is not much for the University of Arizona to work with. I think they should be given a pass on this one.

I confess I may be less than completely objective because I find the subject matter so fascinating, but I give this site high marks. The strike had national repercussions and this is not something of solely regional interest. I give the website a 4.5 overall. I think if you spend some time there yourself, you will agree is a gem, even if a small one.