Vinegar Valentines

Last week Collector’s Weekly put up a great piece about “Vinegar Valentines,” these visually pleasing, often offensive, anonymously-mailed cards that were in vogue between the 1840s and 1940s, intended primarily to rebuff romantic overtures but also used for other purposes:

There were so many different kinds. You could send them to your neighbors, friends, or enemies. You could send them to your schoolteacher, your boss, or people whose advances you wanted to dismiss. You could send them to people you thought were too ugly or fat, who drank too much, or people acting above their station. There was a card for pretty much every social ailment.

Don’t Read the Vinegar Valentines! [CW]