Vinegar Valentines

Vinegar Valentines, sometimes erroneously called “Penny Dreadfuls,” first appeared in this country in the late 1840’s. Made of cheap paper or cardboard, they depicted ugly women, vulgar men, and people with unpleasant or deformed personality traits. Because of their often grossly offensive portraitures, it is difficult to conceive that they were actually sent through the mails from one person to another.

In their own way, however, the Valentines provide an interesting source of information about what was considered to be non-normative and, therefore, subject to ridicule in any given period. Male attitudes concerning the suffragist are often reflected in this genre of the anti-Valentine, as we see men fearing that women’s rights necessarily involved a reversal of gender roles, and that, from their perception, activists were scolds, harridans, and even she-devils who, social outcasts as they were, nevertheless tried to inflict their values on otherwise rational women. Those who were influenced by suffragists, therefore, were considered either suspect or confused at best, worrying about their complexions as much as they were concerned about their rights.