Background
Mr. Peter S. Jowe was born in Hankow in 1893.
Mr. Peter S. Jowe was born in Hankow in 1893.
Mr. Jowe received his primary education in St. John’s Primary School of the American Church Mission in which institution he continued his higher education until the higher school period, attending St. Paul’s School, Cathedral Choir School and the Middle School of Boone University.
He left Boone University to join Nanyang Colleg'e in Shanghai, where he completed the academical course of arts. Later he took the civil engineering course, which he gave up on account of his inclination toward literature and journalism. While in college he devoted much time to the study of English literature.
In 1918 Mr. Jowe began his career by contributing articles to reading magazines and newspapers in Shanghai and editing the college paper at the same time. In the early spring of 1919 he returned to Hankow where he was appointed contributing editor for Central China for the China Weekly Review then known as Millard’s Review. A few months later he received the appointment as special correspondent of The China Press, Shanghai.
During the 1920 Anfu-Chihli war Mr. Jowe was responsible for all the reports of the war in his territory, being also the first to wire the opening of the war to Shanghai. In the same year Mr. Jowe assisted the local Y. M. C. A. in organizing their educational work and became headmaster of their School of Commerce and Finance.
The next year, 1921, Mr. Jowe was appointed Hankow correspondent of the North China Star, The Peking Leader and for a time, The Shanghai Times. Later he was appointed by the Chung Mei News Agency as their staff correspondent in the interior. Later he organized the Independent News Service, which became a very influential and important organization supplying news from Hankow and the interior to the outside world through a chain of important newspapers, including The China Press, The Peking Leader, the Peking Daily News. The Far Eastern Times, the North China Standard, The Independent News and the North China Star.
In the spring of 1923 Mr. Jowe started the Independent News,'a daily and Sunday newspaper in Hankow. The paper was started practically as a personal enterprise by Mr. Jowe, who at the beginning could interest only a very limited number of persons with his newspaper scheme. In spite of many difficulties the paper has proved to be a successful venture. It was his hope to still further improve and enlarge the paper.
Mr. Jowe was also proprietor of the Chung Mei Advertising Agency, the pioneer organization of its kind in Hankow. This he started in 1919 the advertising account of many important advertisers in China. He was a member of the Crystal Club, a union of twelve formed along the line of a Rotary Club. He was advisor to Tuchun Hsiao Yao-nan of Hubei, who was concurrently High Inspecting Commissioner of Hubei and Henan.