December 17, 1876 – April 6, 1959

by David Curtis Skaggs, Christ Episcopal Church, New Bern, NC, 2016

Few Christ Church women have been more of a rebel against the norms of their day than a New Bern girl named Mary Bayard Morgan. She was one of the town’s first nationally known female entrepreneurs and feminists. She spent a year and a half at the North Carolina State Normal and Industrial School in Greensboro (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro). While teaching deaf children in Georgia, she married a lawyer named Charles Wootten. The marriage lasted four years and in 1901 she returned to New Bern with one son and another on the way.

Long known for her artistic talents, she tried to make her way as a local painter of designs for invitations, score cards, parasols, fans and dresses. She designed the first trademark for Brad’s Drink, later known as Pepsi-Cola. She gradually began work as a professional photographer and when the North Carolina National Guard established Camp Glenn at Morehead City in 1906 she opened a “photo hut” at the encampment where her work was favorably received by the guardsmen. Named the Guard’s chief of publicity, she became its first female member complete with uniform.

She stopped using her first name of “Mary” and instead combined her middle name of “Bayard” (pronounced BY-ard) with the married name of Wootten. She adopted a masculine dress style and had her hair cut short and combed it straight back. She regularly smoked cigarettes and relaxed with a couple of drinks in the evening. In 1914 she became the first female American aerial photographer while on a flight over New Bern in an open-air Wright Brothers bi-winged aircraft. Another time she photographed a waterfall while hanging from a rope.

In 1918 she began a long photographic career associated with the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill. This success contributed to her decision to open a second studio in Chapel Hill with her half-brother George Moulton. She resided in Chapel Hill from 1928 until 1954.

She envisioned her profession as an art form and began touring southeastern United States and setting up local studios to take personal pictures while stopping along the way to capture interesting individuals and scenery. Many of her efforts became book illustrations. She was best known for her insightful shots from young black children at play, to men playing checkers on the porch of a country store, to Appalachian grandmothers wrinkled by poverty, age and chores. Mrs. Wootten’s greatest contribution to her profession rests on her documentation of the usually ignored lives of the lower classes of society. Her photographic collection of approximately 90,000 items is housed at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill.

Gradually deafness and blindness ended her career and she retired to New Bern where she died in 1959. Undoubtedly the example of Bayard Wootten provided women with an inspiration of what independence, courage, and an expansive outlook can accomplish.