Vintage valentine from the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, Photo by Sanjay Suchak

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, UVA Today is featuring a story on items drawn from Special Collections’ holdings of “delicate cards, miniature books and personal albums, all celebrating love.” Items pulled for UVA Today by Library exhibits coordinator Holly Robertson and Special Collections curator Krystal Appiah include:

• An 1844 valentine in verse, sent by an unknown soldier to Mary Berdan, daughter of the first mayor of Toledo, Ohio.
• A scrapbook from the 1940s belonging to Hampton Institute student Jessie Fuller, “a wonderful record of joy and social bonds” containing valentines, notes from friends, sorority mementos, and photos of her basketball team.
• An illustrated miniature book, “A Valentine,” by Jeanne Goessling.

To learn more about these items, and to see what other treasures Robertson and Appiah shared with UVA Today, read the article “Celebrate the Day With Vintage Valentines From UVA Special Collections.”