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Office of the Principal of Armstrong High SchoolBrown’s two children who reached adulthood, Bessie Gwendola Brown and George Willis Brown, joined the family business. The Browns, whose slogan was “Makers of Portraits That Please,” became the most important visual chroniclers of Richmond’s African American population, producing thousands of studio portraits and documenting community life at schools, sporting events, and fraternal meetings. The studio produced pictures for schools and institutions throughout the state, including Virginia Union University, Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute (later Virginia State University), Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton University), Saint Paul’s Industrial School (later Saint Paul’s College) in Lawrenceville, and the Virginia Industrial School for Girls. The
Bowser was born on January 7, 1855, in Amelia County, the daughter of Henry Dixon, a carpenter, and Augusta A. Hawkins Dixon, a domestic servant. She was probably born into slavery. After freedom came in 1865, the family moved to Richmond and started a new life. Religion and education were the foundations of the family, and they joined Richmond’s largest congregation, First African Baptist Church. Dixon first taught in the Sunday school there. Her father recognized her aptitude and enrolled her in the Richmond public schools, where she initially received instruction from northern teachers of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
The superintendent of the Freedmen’s Bureau schools in Virginia, Ralza M. Manly, identified exemplary students and selected them for teacher training at the Richmond Normal and High School (after 1870 the Richmond Colored Normal School). Dixon became one of Manly’s protégés and excelled in English, mathematics, music, and reading. She graduated with the second-h