Skip to content
Orange County Public Library (opens the library’s website in a new tab)

Local figure

Bayard Wootten

Bayard Morgan Wootten (1875–1959), a New Bern photographer, won significant recognition after she moved to Chapel Hill in 1928. Her Wootten-Moulton Studios there were the official photographers for the Carolina Playmakers and the Yackety Yack yearbook. She retired in 1954, sold the Chapel Hill studio and returned to New Bern.

Source: UNC Libraries, Wilson Special Collections: Bayard Morgan Wootten Photographic Collection, circa 1870-1988

Also found in catalogs as Bayard Morgan Wootten.

7 works about Bayard Wootten are indexed here.

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
Bayard Wootten, photograph, 1959
Bayard Wootten, photograph, 1959

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each opens its own page, with its events date by date.

StorylineFoister’s camera shop on Franklin Street, 1911–19891911–1989 · 4 events · Robert W. Foister began selling cameras on Franklin Street in 1911 from a section of E. A. Brown's store. After a 1925 fire he moved across the street, and from 1926 Bayard Wootten made portraits in a studio over his store. Foister's Camera Store had closed by April 1989, one of the closings a downtown merchant blamed on falling foot traffic.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 10 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Bayard Wootten photographs the Playmakers' outdoor Taming of the Shrew Bayard Wootten of New Bern came to Chapel Hill to photograph the Carolina Playmakers' outdoor production of The Taming of the Shrew, the start of years of Playmakers work. That month she also urged the University to have aerial photographs made of the growing campus. Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, October 18, 1923, p. 3
  2. Bayard Wootten opens a Chapel Hill studio over Foister's store Bayard Wootten arranged with R. W. Foister to use the upper floor of his store as a studio, making portraits there every Saturday and taking photographs in homes and outdoors. By 1928 the Wootten-Moulton Studio over Foister's was her Chapel Hill base. Place: Foister's store, Chapel Hill · Also named: R. W. FoisterSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 6, 1926, p. 1
  3. Bayard Wootten and Ben Bunker publish Ways and Byways of Chapel Hill The Wootten-Moulton studio published a picture booklet of the village pairing Wootten's photographs with light captions written by Ben Bunker, printed by Edwards and Broughton of Raleigh. Its scenes include the Davie Poplar, the Franklin Street stores, the Saturday women's curb market and University Lake. Place: Wootten-Moulton studio, Chapel Hill · Also named: Ben Bunker · Also mentions: Davie Poplar, Franklin StreetSearch the index · Ben Bunker and Bayard Wootten, Ways and Byways of Chapel Hill (1939), scan p. 3
  4. The University Press issues Old Homes and Gardens of North Carolina The University of North Carolina Press issued Old Homes and Gardens of North Carolina, with text by Archibald Henderson and photographs by Bayard Wootten, for the Garden Club of North Carolina in an edition of 1,000 copies at $10, nearly all sold by early January. Governor Clyde R. Hoey wrote the foreword and signed every copy. People: Archibald Henderson, Bayard Wootten, Clyde Roark Hoey Place: University of North Carolina Press, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, January 5, 1940, p. 6
  5. Fire damages the home of photographer Bayard Wootten A kerosene stove exploded in the Chapel Hill home of photographer Bayard Wootten early in the morning, burning off the roof; firemen, neighbors, and Chi Psi students carried out all her belongings. The damage was put at $1,900, and she moved into the vacant Gattis house across the street. Place: Cameron Avenue, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, May 9, 1941, p. 1
  6. Bayard Wootten is to talk on her Mobile photographs at Person Hall Bayard Wootten was to give a talk, A Photographer Discusses Mobile in the Spring, on Sunday afternoon, August 18, in the small gallery at Person Hall, where a collection of the pictures she had made in Mobile that spring was on exhibit. Place: Person Hall, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 16, 1946, p. 8
  7. George Moulton leaves the Wootten-Moulton photography partnership By mutual consent the Chapel Hill photography partnership of George C. Moulton, Bayard Wootten and Rufus M. Wootten was dissolved and Moulton withdrew; Bayard and Rufus Wootten formed a new partnership that kept the Wootten-Moulton name and business. Place: Wootten-Moulton studio, Chapel Hill · Also named: George C. Moulton, Rufus M. WoottenSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 15, 1948, p. 4
  8. The Altrusa Club honors photographer Bayard Wootten with an exhibit and tea About 400 people from across the state came to the Institute of Government building, decorated with murals made from her photographs, for an exhibition of Bayard Wootten's work and a tea in her honor given by the Chapel Hill Altrusa Club. Place: Institute of Government building, Chapel HillSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 2, 1949, p. 8
  9. Bayard Wootten sells her Chapel Hill studio and returns to New Bern Bayard Wootten sold the Wootten-Moulton Studio to her longtime manager T. C. Moore, who kept it running, and left Chapel Hill for her old home town of New Bern. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: T. C. MooreSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, October 29, 1954, p. 1
  10. Chapel Hill Public Library shows Bayard Wootten photographs after her death Weeks after Bayard Wootten died in New Bern, the Chapel Hill Public Library displayed her 1930s photographs of western North Carolina, made to illustrate two UNC Press books, Backwoods America and Cabins in the Laurel. Place: Chapel Hill Public Library, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, April 23, 1959, p. 8

People named in the same events

People named in the same dated entries as Bayard Wootten, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

Indexed works

Works about or by Bayard Wootten. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.

Nellie Holmes Johnson (b. 1918) : Georgia Small Lance (b. 1926) : Genevieve Chandler Peterkin (b. 1928) : Cad Holmes (b. 1945)

Wootten, Bayard Morgan, 1875-1959; Peterkin, Genevieve C. (Genevieve Chandler), 1928-2011; Lance, Georgia Small, 1926-; Johnson, Nellie Holmes, 1918-; Holmes, Cad, 1945-; Wells, Randall A., 1942-; Coastal Carolina University · 2001

A transcript of a session recorded on January 27, 2000, in which four Horry County, South Carolina residents, Nellie Holmes Johnson, Georgia Small Lance, Genevieve Chandler Peterkin and Cad Holmes, identify the people in photographs Bayard Wootten made there in 1937 and 1938. Randall A. Wells transcribed the videotape, and the participants corrected it in 2001. The photographs are associated with the university's North Carolina Collection.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Wootten, Bayard Morgan, 1875-1959.

UNC

Bayard Wootten photographs : North Carolina Collection, UNC Library at Chapel Hill.

2000 · Coastal Carolina University and the Waccamaw Center for Regional Studies

Videotaped interview of 147 minutes about the Bayard Wootten photographs in the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina library in Chapel Hill, recorded for the Horry County Oral History Project sponsored by Coastal Carolina University and the Waccamaw Center for Regional Studies. Wootten lived from 1875 to 1959, and the interview concerns African American life in Horry County, South Carolina. A separate transcript is available.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Wootten, Bayard Morgan, 1875-1959.

UNC

View from Battle Seat, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Wootten, Bayard Morgan, 1875-1959 · 1942 · Graycraft Card Co., Danville, Va

Bayard Wootten took the photograph for this 1942 Graycraft postcard of the view from Battle Seat in Chapel Hill, the bench honoring Kemp Plummer Battle. Aviation cadet T. C. Poole of Lewis Hall, then training at the U.S. Navy Pre-Flight School, mailed it to a friend in place of a letter.

Included because: Listed as its creator.

DPLA

Manning Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Wootten, Bayard Morgan, 1875-1959 · 1939 · Gray & Thompson Advertising, Chapel Hill, N.C

Manning Hall on the Chapel Hill campus, photographed by Bayard Wootten for a natural-finish postcard made by Gray and Thompson of Chapel Hill in 1939. The sender's note on the back tells of arriving safely, a family dinner, a rainy departure from Hillsville and broken glasses.

Included because: Listed as its creator.

DPLA

Miscellaneous Postcard Collection

Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Office of Archives and History. Division of Archives and Records · 1900

Postcards gathered from many sources, 1900s to 2005, arranged in five series: single cards, addressed cards, postcard packets, oversize cards and miscellany. Places and subjects span North Carolina and beyond, from Alamance Battleground to the Appalachian Mountains, and Chapel Hill and Hillsborough scenes are among them.

Included because: Catalog heading in the State Archives of NC record: Wootten, Bayard Morgan, 1875-1959.

State Archives of NC

William Lanier Hunt papers, 1880s-1996.

Hunt, William Lanier · 1884

Papers of the horticulturist William Lanier Hunt, dated from the 1880s to 1996, about 40,000 items in 130 linear feet, part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 5286. Topics include southern gardens and garden design, horticultural societies and teaching, the North Carolina Botanical Garden and its foundation, photographs of flowers, and the botanist William Chambers Coker at Chapel Hill.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Wootten, Bayard Morgan, 1875-1959.

UNC
Show 1 more

Albert Coates and Gladys Hall Coates papers, 1841-2001

1841

Joint papers of Albert Coates (1896-1989) and Gladys Hall Coates, 1841 to 2001, about 51,600 items in 73.5 linear feet, part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 3818. The papers cover the law school and the Institute of Government at Chapel Hill, student government, local government and community organization in North Carolina, the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women, scouting, and the photographer Bayard Morgan Wootten.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Wootten, Bayard Morgan, 1875-1959.

UNC

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 3 with a known location.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Sources and research tools for this person. For ready-made searches of other catalogs, see Search further. Research guide: Trace a family through historical records.

Records of the time

Collections and databases

  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Bayard Wootten Library card Search NC LIVE for this subject and Orange County. You can change the search terms. Sign in through your North Carolina library to access the materials.
  • Ancestry Library Edition In the libraryOrange County Public Library Census, birth, death and marriage records, and more, free on the public computers at OCPL libraries

Local help

Search further

Search other catalogs and collections for this name. Results may include other people with the same name and have not been reviewed by the Friends.

Books about Bayard Wootten

Find copies at other libraries

Photographs, papers, and newspapers

Historical records and collections

Catalog searches use the catalog name heading: Wootten, Bayard Morgan, 1875-1959. Historical-record searches use the person’s name and may include namesakes. Links open in a new tab.

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

Picture: Bayard Wootten, photograph, 1959. No known copyright restrictions. Internet Archive Book Images, via Flickr Commons and Wikimedia Commons

More to discover

Keep Reading Local

The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.

Browse New Arrivals → Meet Local Authors → Explore Local Publishers →
Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026