Valentines Day trolls of the Victorian Era

As Birds begin to mate with gusto, Valentine's Day strikes. However, unlike the birds and their dance to romance, in humans not all receivers of Valentines are receptive to such advances. So, while to some Anti-Valentines seems to be a new concept, the Valentine trolls of the Victorian Era beg to differ. Examples of such cards can be found at the tail end of this blog post. Many articles through out the web refer to Vinegar Valentines as the Krampus of Valentines Day.

As you can see, Poking such fun is no new concept. These Vinegar Valentines Day cards were savage Valentines filled with rejection and heralded insults towards the recipient. These satirical cards were generally doled out with anonymity and featured poetry or caricatures commenting on the appearance of the recipient. Some have referred to these cards as “hate mail”, as “crass” and comic valentines designed to to hold off would be suitors of the 1840s.

As If all this Vinegar was not bitter enough, These controversial commercial Valentine Cards required the receiver of rejection to pay for their postage. Many considered these cards to be vulgar, though standard Valentines and Vinegar ones were purchased in equal measure in 1847, according to Cameron Nickels. Vinegar Valentines were said to be sent to a host of individuals such as single men, older females (old maids), dandies about town, penny pinchers and drunkards. As well as insulting the mail men sending them out, doctors and others in various professions.

Older women were doled out such savagery in Vinegar Valentines such as one, which read: “Tis all in vain your simpering looks, you never can incline, with all your bustles, stays and curls, to find a Valentine.”

Feminists were also included in Vinegar Valentines and implied women pushing for voting rights had some sort of distorted view on reality.

On the otherhand, women in support of the vote had valentine that indicated “No Vote, No kiss”.

Vinegar Valentines began to be sold less frequently overtime, but were successfully sold all the way into the 1970's.

In a similar spirit (albeit a little more vulgar) if you are feeling saucy enough you can pay to send someone gummy worms in a well-known shape. The link for doing so will be listed at the bottom of the blog post.