Description
The Nancy and Henry Rosin collection of
valentine, friendship, and devotional ephemera contains materials from Europe and North
America dating from 1493 to the late 2010s. The bulk of the collection ranges from
approximately 1840 to 1930 and pertains to St. Valentine's Day, but subjects also include
holidays such as Christmas, Jewish New Year, Leap Year, Easter, and other celebratory and
commemorative events. A significant portion of the collection also contains materials
relating to friendship, love and courtship, religious devotion, and education. Materials
consist of greeting cards, stationery, scrapbooks, verse writers, rewards of merit, marriage
certificates, friendship albums, periodicals, pictorials, prints, drawings, illustrations,
almanacs, cutwork, postcards, sheet music, artifacts, and other three-dimensional
items.
Background
Nancy P. Rosin is a researcher and writer whose work focuses on valentines and other
ephemera. She is president of the National Valentine Collectors Association, President
Emerita of the Ephemera Society of America, Member of the Grolier Club, and the American
Antiquarian Society. Rosin earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing Education from The
Teacher's College of Columbia University and was a registered nurse for more than four
decades. She and her late husband, Dr. Henry D. Rosin, assembled the collection over a span
of forty years.
Restrictions
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from
or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The
responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining
necessary permissions rests with the researcher.