Valentine’s Day can be a divisive holiday. But love it or hate it, students at Western New England University have always found ways to make sure it was on everyone’s mind.

So today, let’s take a look at how students at Western New England celebrated the holiday over the years.

A little ditty from The Nor’easter, 1935

The Valentine Dance was a big event on the social calendar in the 1950s.

Students published personal ads – some romantic, some not – in The Westerner in 1976.

A somewhat cynical take on Valentine’s Day from The Westerner, 1981.

Students reported their plans for Valentine’s Day in The Westerner in 1996.

Be sure to click on the image to view a larger version.

Enjoy, and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Did you know you can search through digitized copies of Western New England’s student newspapers all the way back to 1935? This is thanks to the amazing Internet Archive, a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, music, and more. The Internet Archive is also home to the Way Back Machine, an amazing database that will bring you back in time and allow you to see what your favorite webpages used to look like.

Today I thought I’d bring you down memory lane to 20 years ago, when the internet was full of dancing icons and scrolling neon. Even though there wasn’t anything flashing, the Western New England website was still very representative of late 1990’s webpage design, and it is truly a magnificent site to be seen!

Screenshot of the home page of Western New England College, July 1997.

You can navigate through the entire site from 1997 here. And be sure to check out all of the digitized material from Western New England University on the Internet Archive!