Though its roots stretch all the way back to the Roman era, Valentine’s Day as a cultural holiday celebrating romantic love was firmly established by the 19th century.
New Yorkers at the time could honor the day by exchanging love letters, mailing cards decorated with hearts and cupids, or buying small gifts as tokens of affection. (Chocolate didn’t become a Valentine Day’s staple until 1861, when British chocolatier and marketing genius Richard Cadbury invented the heart-shaped box.)
Another way to honor the day was to attend Gotham’s annual Bachelors’ Ball.
This swanky event was held every February 13th or 14th, first at the posh City Hotel beginning in the 1820s and then a decade later at Niblo’s Saloon—a theater that was part of the popular Niblo’s Garden pleasure ground at today’s Broadway and Prince Street.
The purpose of these invitation-only events—put on by one or more clubs made up of actual bachelors—seems to be for elite unmarried men to meet and potentially match with eligible women of high social class.
Holding the balls on Valentine’s Day really underlines the ultimate goal of turning single men into husbands. In an article about the Bachelors’ Ball of 1842, the New-York Mirror weirdly summed up the yearly event this way:
The balls were not “to confirm bachelors in single wretchedness, but to lead them into the silken chains of matrimony gradually—imperceptibly—sweetly—like a midsummer’s night dream—only to awaken to the realities of a sober, happy, married life.”
“These are the results of the Bachelors’ Ball; therefore, sweet ladies, prepare your brightest smiles for St. Valentine’s Eve, and be determined, on this jocund and interesting occasion, to select, cautiously but firmly, the men worthy of your hearts and hands, for, on that night, many are the contracts made, which last for life, for weal or woe.”
There may have been interruptions that prevented the Bachelors’ Ball from being held every year. But they seemed to have lasted into the early 20th century, subsumed into the Gilded Age social world with an invite list of Vanderbilts and other young eligibles.
Is there a modern equivalent of the Bachelors’ Balls? With so many people unhappy with dating apps, maybe it’s time to put them back on the calendar and open them up to every love-seeking New Yorker.
[Top image: MCNY, 49.268.1; second image: Wikipedia; third image: The Evening Post, 1828; fourth image: The Evening Post, 1842; fifth image: NYPL Digital Collections]
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