Snapshot: Artemisia Bowden and St. Philip's College

Artemisia Bowden. Courtesy of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word via TSHA.

Artemisia Bowden was born in Georgia in 1879 to parents who were formerly enslaved. She graduated in 1900 from St. Augustine’s Normal School in North Carolina and taught for two years in the state before moving to San Antonio in 1902 to take over as principal of St. Philip’s Day School. When Bowden arrived, the day school primarily taught sewing to young African-American girls; shortly after arriving, Bowden renamed it St. Philip’s Industrial School for Girls.

In 1927, under Bowden’s leadership and after gaining private junior college status in 1926, the school became St Philip's Junior College. Bowden served at the school until her retirement in 1954. She carried the college through the Great Depression, and later, in 1954, saw the San Antonio Union Junior College board hear and subsequently deny a petition from St Philip's to integrate campuses and allow African-American students to enroll in San Antonio College. The following year, the board relented; African-American students were admitted to San Antonio College, and white students were admitted to St. Philip’s. The college is the only historically black college or university (HBCU) in San Antonio.

Artemisia Bowden at the dedication of the Bowden Administration Building. San Antonio Register, Friday, 3 December 1954, p. 1.

 At St. Philip’s College on Sunday, November 28, 1954, Bowden was honored for her “52 years as an educator and for community service” at an “elaborate series of events that began at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and concluded some four hours later.” It was there that St. Philip’s Bowden Administration Building, designed and built in 1953 by Atlee B. and Robert M. Ayres with Phelps & Dewees & Simmons, was named in Bowden’s honor. Her portrait hangs inside the building.

 In addition to her career in education, Bowden was founder and president of San Antonio’s Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club, introduced an African-American nursing unit in Robert B. Green Hospital, was named to the Texas Commission on Interracial Relations in 1947, and secured Lindbergh Park (now Robert A. Dawson Park) for San Antonio’s African-American residents. In 2015, Bowden was canonized by the 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, with August 18 her named saint day. The same year, Alamo Colleges District named her President Emeritus “in recognition of her leadership and service” to St. Philip’s College. The west side of the Campus Ministry building, across the street from the Bowden Building, has a large mural dedicated to Bowden.

The Bowden Administrative Building (Building 14) at St. Philip’s College.

The west side of St. Philip’s Campus Ministry Building, across the street from the Bowden Administration Building, has a mural celebrating Artemisia Bowden.

ScoutSA staff got to know Bowden as part of an Historic Assessment prepared for the Alamo Colleges District.