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New Bern’s own Bayard Wootten died today.
Well, not today exactly. She died in 1959, 67 years ago. But it was on April 6.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Wootten was well known along the eastern seaboard for her brilliant photography. She is not so well known now, but a New Bern native is working hard to change that.
Many of Wootten’s photographs have already been displayed in a fine book titled Light and Air.
Bayard Wootten (source: Anthony Lilly)
She was the first woman to take an aerial photo, shooting New Bern from a Wright Brothers model airplane, aiming the camera between her legs. She loved shooting both people and flowers, and her photographs graced a number of books (among the Cabins in the Laurel, a study of life in the Carolina mountains). She once dangled from a rope to photograph a Carolina waterfall, and her work photographing the military is credited with saving Fort Bragg. She started out in New Bern, though much of her work was done in a studio in Chapel Hill. She also, almost certainly, designed the original Pepsi logo for her neighbor Caleb Bradham.
Pepsi founder Caleb Bradham (Source: Anthony Lilly)
Wootten had a humble beginning: though she had a pleasant home (the Louisiana House, which stands on South Front Street today), the family was financially poor. Early in life she taught at a deaf school in the deep South. She married a man who, seeing the home, assumed she was rich. When he realized she wasn’t, he abandoned her and their two sons and she was left to survive on her own. At first she dabbled in water pains and postcards before turning to the camera.
She was a female photographer in a day when there were almost no female photographers and she is a minor celebrity who should be much better known.
A former James City man is doing his best to make that happen with a museum all about her in downtown New Bern.
Anthony Lilly, a professional photographer now residing in Seattle (“I hate it, it rains constantly,” he told me) has invested in the Justice House, a historic home at 221 East Front Street built in 1848 that carries in its plaster graffiti left by Union soldiers during the Civil War. A long-time admirer of Wootten’s photography, he is working under New Bern Preservation Society guidelines to restore the home and open it as a museum sometime down the road. While Lilly finances and oversees the restoration a local friend and fellow collector, Ashley Norman, is overseeing the work.
The Louisiana House where Wootten resided. (Bill Hand / New Bern Live)
Just when is not certain—Lilly is financing the work as a labor of love and he estimates it will take at least another $150,000 to bring the house up to par. Once done, though, he has a decade of collecting Wootten (and even Bradham) memorabilia to make a visit to the museum memorable.
“It’s going to be filled with all of her stuff,” he said, “all of her cameras, all of her glass plates, her clothing.” Lilly has an extensive collection of Wootten’s photographs, writings and art. He said the University of North Carolina (UNC) will also be turning over archives on long term loan to display.
“I’ve got pretty much the entire New Bern studio,” he said, including several of Wootten’s original cameras. “Just tons and tons of stuff,” he said. “Cool stuff.”
He also plans to build a replica of the shed that she converted into her first studio on her original property.
If you are interested in more about Bayard Wootten, you can visit Lilly’s Facebook page about her, “The Long Stride.”