Valentines Collection created by Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections

Esther A. Howland was born in 1826 in Worcester, Massachusetts to Southworth Allen Howland, a stationer and bookseller. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1847. Howland began making valentines in her home in 1849 after receiving an elaborate valentine from England. Her business quickly grew, and she turned her house into a valentine factory. She sold the business to George C. Whitney in 1881. Howland is credited with establishing the commercial valentine industry in the U.S. She died at 78 in 1904 in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Marguerite A. Welcher Davol was born on July 2, 1928 in East Peoria, Illinois. She graduated from the University of Colorado in 1951 with majors in English and Education. Later she did graduate study in American literature at Kansas State University (1953-54), University of Rochester (1956-57), and University of Massachusetts (1966). Davol was a children's author, a poet and a teacher at the Mount Holyoke College Gorse Child Center from 1966-1992. She married Stephen Herbert Davol and they had three children.

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