Rosa L. Dixon Bowser (January 7, 1855 – February 7, 1931) was an American educator. She was the first African-American teacher hired in Richmond, Virginia. She organized the Virginia Teachers' Reading Circle, which became the Virginia State Teachers Association, the first organization representing black teachers in Virginia, serving as the organization's president from 1890 to 1892. Bowser was president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Virginia, as well as founder and first president of the Richmond Woman's League.Culp, Daniel Wallace. Twentieth Century Negro Literature: Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro. United States: J.L. Nichols & Company, 1902. p.176. She was a correspondent for the magazine The Woman's Era, and wrote essays for national publications.
Early life Rosa L. Dixon was born in Amelia County, Virginia, the daughter of Henry Dixon and Augusta Anderson Hawkins Dixon; she was "most likely born enslaved".Veronica Alease Davis and The Dictionary of Virginia Biography, "Rosa L. Dixon Bowser" Encyclopedia Virginia (Virginia Foundation for the Humanities 2013). As a child she moved to post-war Richmond with her parents, and was educated by teachers from the Freedmen's Bureau. She was identified as a promising student and trained as a teacher at the Richmond Colored Normal School.Monroe Alphus Majors, ed. Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities (Donohue & Henneberry 1893): 149-151.
Career
Dixon was just seventeen years old when she became the first black teacher hired by the Richmond, Virginia, public schools.Suzanne Lebsock, A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial (W. W. Norton and Company 2004): 147- 148. She taught in schools from 1872 until 1879, and again in widowhood from 1883 until she retired in 1923. She also taught night classes for young African-American men through YMCA. She organized the Virginia Teachers' Reading Circle, which became the Virginia State Teachers Association,"Mrs. R. D. Bowser" Richmond Planet (January 12, 1895): 1. via Newspapers.com the first organization representing black teachers in Virginia.L. P. Jackson, A History of the Virginia State Teachers Association (The Guide Publishing Company 1937). She served as the organization's president from 1890 to 1892.Ruth Edmonds Hill, "Rosa Dixon Bowser" in Jessie Carney Smith, Notable Black American Women Book 2 (VNR AG 1996): 51-53. Hilary Green, Educational Reconstruction: African American Schools in the Urban South, 1865-1890 (Oxford University Press 2016): 84-85.
Bowser was Virginia correspondent for the magazine Woman's Era.Rosa D. Bowser, "Virginia" Women's Era 2(1)(1895). She wrote essays for national publications, including "What Role is the Educated Negro Woman to Play in the Uplifting of her Race?" (1902),Daniel Wallace Culp, ed., Twentieth Century Negro Literature (J. L. Nichols 1902): 176-182. and "The Mother's Duty to her Adolescent Sons and Daughters" (1902).Irving Garland Penn and John Wesley Edward Bowen, eds., The United Negro: His Problems and His Progress (D. E. Luther Publishing Company 1902): 446-448.
In 1902, Bowser was president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in Virginia."Work of our Women" The Colored American (May 17, 1902): 9. via Newspapers.com"Mrs. Lawson in Richmond" The Colored American (May 10, 1902): 6. via Newspapers.com She gave lectures at the annual gatherings of the Hampton Negro Conferences, and chaired the Committee on Domestic Science from 1899 to 1902. She raised funds for the Industrial Home School for Colored Girls and the Virginia Manual Labor School for Colored Boys. Bowser also served as President of the Woman's Department of the Negro Reformatory Association of Virginia.
Leadership and service She was founder and first president of the Richmond Woman's League. She supported the Virginia Colored Anti-Tuberculosis League in Richmond, and helped to found the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs and the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.
She served on several executive boards for community organizations such the Southern Federation of Colored Women and the Women's Educational and Missionary Association of Virginia, as well as the standing Committee of Domestic Economy, for the Hampton Conference.
Legacy In 1925, the first branch of the Richmond Public Library to serve African-American patrons was named for Bowser.Elvatrice Parker Belsches, Richmond, Virginia (Arcadia Publishing 2002): 60.
Personal life Rosa Dixon married fellow teacher James Herndon Bowser (who was a relative of Civil War spy Mary Bowser)Ronald E. Franklin, "Mary Elizabeth Bowser: Union Spy in the Confederate White House" Owlcation (August 9, 2016). in 1879. Two years later, she was widowed when James died from tuberculosis. They had a son, Oswald Barrington Herndon Bowser (1880-1935), who became a medical doctor in Richmond.
Rosa Dixon Bowser died in 1931, aged 76 years.P. Kevin Morley, "Volunteers Help Restore 'Four Cemeteries at Evergreen'" Richmond Times-Dispatch (February 16, 2014). Her grave in East End Cemetery was mentioned in a 2017 New York Times essay about restoration efforts at "neglected black cemeteries".Brian Palmer, "For the Forgotten African-American Dead" New York Times (January 8, 2017): SR2. The Rosa D. Bowser School in Richmond (the former home of the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia from 1991 to 2015)"Black History Museum Taps New Director" Richmond Free Press (October 9, 2015). was named for her.Bowser School, Richmond Public Schools, A Mini History: Bits and Pieces.
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