This is a reproduction of the 'First American Valetine' produced by Esther Howland in 1849. Esther Allen Howland (1828-1904) was born in Massachusetts, USA. She was a pioneer in the American valentine manufacturing industry. It was after her graduation from Mount Holyoke College in 1847 that she received her first English valentine. Fascinated with the idea of making similar valentines, she imported the necessary paper lace and floral decorations from England. The assembly-line operation that began in her home eventually led to a thriving business grossing $100,000 annually. She was credited with several innovations in valentine design. These included the use of brightly-coloured wafers of paper behind white paper lace to create contrast and the built-up "shadow box" effect that became popular in the latter part of her career, She retired in 1881, selling her business to the George C. Whitney Company.

The golden age for artistic, sentimental valentines was the period from 1840-1860. The development of embossed and then perforated lace paper in England contributed to their popular appeal and many were exported to America. The earliest paper lace was copied from real lace, at first embossed by hand but later pressed by machinery. It was many years before such papers were produced in America, so that when Esther Howland began creating her valentines, it was still from lace-edged blanks purchased from England.