Valentine's Day

Medina County Historical Society

Valentine’s Day…or St. Valentine’s Day,

 is next week. 

February 14th has been known as St. Valentine’s Day for centuries. It is said to have been named after a martyred cleric in Rome, who was a good man and preached the ideas of love and taking care of one's less fortunate neighbors. It was more of a day to celebrate the love of mankind, not a day of sending love notes to one another. 

Brunswick Signal, 27 Feb 1936

According to an article in the Brunswick Signal, the Romans then began using the date for matching up men with women. The men would then be responsible for the woman's care for the year.

Medina County Historical Society

             

               

Medina County Historical Society

 It slowly evolved into a day to celebrate the love of couples and finding different ways to express love between sweethearts. For example, gloves were given as gifts and the recipient wore them on Easter Sunday, poems were sent on hand made cards, and when printing became more affordable, cards were made and sold to the public. 

Medina County Historical Society

By the 1840’s and 1850’s, America had adopted the holiday and the tradition of sending a card to your Valentine. 

 

The earliest mention of Valentine's Day which I could find in a Medina County's newspaper is in the Medina Mirror, February 13, 1855. Where the writer was scolding those who sent “comical” valentines to women.

Library of Congress

At this time and well into the 20th century there were "Vinegar Valentines" and they were meant to be mean and many times did not shine a very nice light on women.

Medina County Historical Society

However, there were some which used a man as their "vinegary" target.

“A Kind of peacock, or a cockatoo,
Is what we all behold when we see you;
With hat in hand, you bow with much grimace,
But better far to see your back than face,
Begone, poor fool – to make love don’t incline –
Who wants a parrot for a Valentine.”

Most of the Valentine's were sweet images and words of love....

Medina County Historical Society

Medina County Historical Society

Medina County Historical Society

Medina County Historical Society

 Once printing becoming more affordable, Valentine's Day cards became a big business even in Medina County.

 

Medina County Gazette, 14 Feb 1861

In 1861, Armstrong's, a book & stationary store located where the Old Phoenix bank building now  stands, advertised their "exquisite lot of Valentines".

Some stores weren't even stationary or book stores..

Medina County Gazette, 4 Feb 1897

                                                                           

  

Medina County Historical Society

                        

                                 

        

Valentine's then began to change from just a card to gifts like...

      FLOWERS                                                                                                     JEWELRY

Lodi Review, 12 Feb 1948

                                                                                                  

Medina County Gazette, 11 Feb 1910

                                       

             

                                                   CANDY

Lodi Advertiser, 3 Feb 1961

Medina County Gazette, 15 Feb 1907

CLOTHES...because you have to look good so you don't end up like those poor souls on a "Vinegar Valentine" card.                                                               

           

Lodi Review, 12 Feb 1948

and of course...APPLIANCES... because who doesn't want a nice Hoover Cleaner or Maytag Washer as a Valentine? 

The resident's of  Medina County celebrated the special day with more than just sending cards and gifts.

Songs were written....

Medina County Gazette, 18 Feb 1886

Parties were thrown....

Medina County Gazette, 8 Feb 1900

Personal ads were printed...

Medina County Gazette, 14 Feb 1975

Dances were attended...

1958 Medinian, Medina High School Yearbook

Township Anniversaries were celebrated...

Medina County Gazette, 10 Feb 1898

 This year Lodi will be celebrating its 211th Anniversary! 

It seems that love was in the air on February 14th in Medina County, and the special holiday was embraced by all who lived and continue to live here!

A BIG THANK YOU to the Medina County Historical Society and Tom Hilberg for the lovely historical Valentine's Day cards.

Sources:

Medina County Gazette

Lodi Review

Lodi Advertiser

Medina Mirror

Brunswick Signal

1958 Medinian - Medina High School Yearbook

   

Major Update to the Digital Archives!

  In order to provide greater access to even more Medina County newspapers, The Digital Archives has undergone a MAJOR update.

If you are new to the Digital Archives, Lauren did an excellent blog on this fantastic database on February 17th: Introducing the Digital Archives of MCDL The blog tells what is included in the database and how to search and save the articles.

What is different?

Now, if you are inside one of the Medina County District Library branches you have access to more publications and more years.

For example, I used the database extensively to research the history of the Girl Scouts in Medina County for last week's blog.

From the remote, publicly-available access to the database my results looked like this:

Notice that the search returned 537 results and it lists six publications covering the decades 1910 (remember the Girl Scouts were founded in 1912) through 1970.

From within any of the six Medina County District Library locations, the search results look like this:

Notice the search has now returned almost double the results with 936 entries. The publications represented is now 10, including some very unique items held by the Medina County Historical Society and the Lodi Harrisville Historical Society. Match Tips was a company newsletter put out by the Ohio Match Company in Wadsworth. Bank Notes was published by the Savings Deposit Bank in Medina.

The years represented now cover the 1980's and 90's. Even the 1970's now has 292 search results compared to 183 pages in the publicly available version of the database.

Access is still through https://www.mcdl.info/newspapers

To access the expanded coverage, visit any of the MCDL branches: Brunswick, Buckeye, Highland, Lodi, Medina or Seville.  Hours and locations can be found here: About Us

So why have two different levels of access depending on where you use the database? 

Copyright law. 

U.S. copyright law says that publications 95 years or older are in the public domain, which allows anyone to use it. For newspapers, that means anything published in 1926 or older is in public domain. And any newspapers published after 1977 are protected under current copyright law.

But the years 1927-1977? 

It depends. Those years are a grey area in copyright law. IF the newspaper published a compliant copyright notice, then they are protected. We have not found a published copyright notice for the Medina newspapers for those years. *

*http://www.advantagearchives.com/blog/the-advantage-companies-newspaper-copyright-law/#:~:text=The%20copyright%20laws%20we%20refer,therefor%20they%20have%20copyright%20protection.