Valentines Going Out of Fashion
An 1885 editorial observes that the valentine trade was already fading, an odd little snapshot of changing Victorian customs.
NewsPipe summary
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 20, 1885 · Page 4
1 min readManufacturers of valentines all but the country over declare that the sale of these sentimental missives is growing less every year, and was never so small as it has been this year. New Year's calls and valentines seem to be going out together.
Was this worth reading?
This is how the site learns what to look for. Ratings move the weights behind the front page; notes go into the editorial brief that guides what gets pulled from the archives next.
Elsewhere in the archive
Basil's Temptation (concluded)
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 20, 1885
A serialized Victorian melodrama reaches its climax as the narrator, Basil, agonizes over whether to conceal evidence that could save an innocent man from execution, at the cost of exposing his wife Philippa's secret — a vivid example of the sensational fiction serials that filled 19th-century newspaper columns.
They Didn't Know It Was Loaded
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 20, 1885 · Montpelier, Vermont
A slapstick office accident at a rival Montpelier newspaper — a falling bookcase nearly flattens the entire editorial staff — is reported with wry amusement.
Waterbury's Maple Sugar Oracle
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 20, 1885 · Waterbury, Vermont
A wonderfully small-scale piece of forgotten Vermont folklore: a local man's yearly forecasts of the maple sugar harvest, taken seriously enough to print.
Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting, at Middlebury
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 20, 1885 · Middlebury, Vermont
Minutes of the Vermont Merino Sheep-Shearing Association's fourth annual meeting reveal debts, delinquent dues, and a heated debate over admitting privately-sheared sheep into official records.