Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
Access Points
Biography
Scope and Content
Descriptive Summary
Title: Flower (Elsie) Collection,
Date (inclusive): 1900-1968
Collection number: Mss45
Creator:
Extent: 4 linear ft.
Repository:
University of the Pacific. Library. Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections
Shelf location: For current information on the location of these
materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
Language:
English.
Administrative Information
Access
Collection is open for research.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Flower (Elsie) Collection, Mss45, Holt-Atherton Department of
Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
Access Points
personal name
Flower, Elsie (1886-1969)
Peffer, Edward F.
Welk, Lawrence -Correspondence
corporate name
Stockton Record (firm)
Radio Station KGDM (Stockton, Calif.)
subjects
Stockton (Calif.) -Social life and customs
Stockton (Calif.) -Social conditions
Stockton (Calif.) -History
San Joaquin County (Calif.) -History
Copperopolis (Calif.) -History
Knight's Ferry (Calif.) -History
Columbia (Calif.) -History
Calaveras County (Calif.) -History
Women broadcasters -California -Stockton
Women journalists -California -Stockton
Tuolumne County (Calif.) -History
Amador County (Calif.) -History
personal name
Hunt, Rockwell Dennis (1868-1966)
Flower, Edwin L.
Biography
Elsie Flower (1886-1969) was a northern California print and radio journalist based
principally in Stockton. While still a child (1902) she was brought to that city by her
parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin L. Flower of Knight's Ferry. Flower attended Stockton High
School, but left before graduating to work as a reporter for Chester Rowell's Fresno
Republican. She was subsequently employed at the San Francisco Chronicle, the Stockton
Daily Independent (1920s) and the Stockton Record (1925-1945). In 1944 Edward F. Peffer,
owner of Stockton's CBS-affiliated radio station KGDM, conceived a fifteen minute local
news show and hired Elsie Flower to produce and moderate it. The program began with
stories about the war service of returning soldiers, then gravitated to boosting local
events and businesses, fostering an interest in local history and helping local people in
trouble. Flower's "City Journal" program ran thrice-weekly for nearly fourteen years. It
was superseded, due to a change in station ownership (KGDM became music station KRAK) and
format, by "Valley Journal" a shorter "women's news" program covering all areas of the
Central Valley and the southern Mother Lode (1958).
Scope and Content
The Flower Collection consists of: correspondence (1900-1968); KGDM "City Journal" radio
scripts (1945-1955); notes, drafts, photos, pamphlets and clippings pertaining chiefly to
San Joaquin County, the southern Mother Lode and the West.