Esther

According to Hallmark, Americans send 145 million Valentine’s cards each year. And this colossal number does not include the cards kids exchange and the hand-crafted ones.

Women purchase about 85 percent of all these hearty greetings. So it is fitting that this blog is about a remarkable woman who is known as ” the Mother of the American Valentine”.

Born in 1828, Esther Howland grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, graduating from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1847. The headmistress of that institution had warned her young ladies against “those foolish notes called valentines”, but Esther had different thoughts.

Esther’s father owned a large book and stationery store, and one of his colleagues sent Esther an elaborate, lacy valentine from England. At that time England was the epicenter of ornate Valentine cards.

Esther was not smitten by her suitor, but she did love the card. Suitably inspired, she designed and assembled twelve cards of her own. When her brother made sales calls for their father’s business, he took Esther’s cards with him. She was hoping for around $200 worth of orders and was stunned when her brother came back with orders over $5,000.

Although Esther had originally planned on making all the cards herself, she realized a new strategy was needed. She immediately cleared a room in the family home, ordered supplies from England and invited over a group of friends. The young women were each assigned only one task. Some cut out pictures, others put on lace, while others added feathers, ribbons and embellishments. Esther Howland had invented an assembly line to mass manufacture the cards which she designed. Her idea predated Henry Ford’s “invention” of the assembly line by decades.

Orders poured in, and soon the operation filled the entire third floor of the family home. In 1870, she incorporated her business as the New England Valentine Company. Her sales were over $150,000 annually which would be several million dollars in today’s money.

Esther eventually had to move the booming operation to a building in downtown Worcester. This savvy entrepreneur had popularized commercial Valentine’s cards in America. Her tasteful creations sold for as little as 5¢ and as much as $50 for elaborate cards with ribbons, gilded lace and hidden doors for hiding treasures such as a lock of hair or an engagement ring.

Esther Howland sold her thriving business to a competitor in 1980, and this, too, is a story about love. She sold out to spend all her time at home caring for her dying father.

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