Reaction to writing The History of Valentine’s Day

    Personally I still feel very uncomfortable using web sources to get historical information.  When I was trying to find sources for this essay it was hard to find ones that I trusted.  Even so I was still wary of the information I found and I’m sure that my information varies from that of my classmates.  While I went to the History Channel first because I had seen their History of the Holidays section, I was wary when at the bottom of the page of the history of Valentine’s Day there was a special thanks to American Greetings.  While I had previously thought that the History Channel is a reliable source for general information, this certainly made me doubt that.  By thanking American Greetings, it is clear that by writing this history there were certainly other motives, which probably explains why there was somewhat of an emphasis on the history of sending cards for Valentine’s Day.

The other website I looked at was Christianity Today which also certainly had somewhat of a motive of explaining the Christian origins of Valentine’s Day.  The only website I used in which I felt like there was no ulterior motive was CNN.  However, the article on that website extensively quotes from a man who wrote a book about Chaucer and Valentine’s Day and I did not see in any clear place what this man’s credentials were to make him an “expert” on Valentine’s Day.  The Google book search was also quite frustrating to me because while I found a few books that I thought would be helpful, the preview cut off the information before I was able to finish reading the whole history of Valentine’s Day that these authors wrote.  Therefore I did not feel comfortable using the partial information that I was allowed access to.

Overall while I found a lot of the same information in most of my sources I still do not really feel that confident in any of them.  The only solace I have is that they back each other up.  I also found similar information on other websites I decided not to use which gives me a little more comfort that maybe the sources I did choose to use got it right.