Bayard Wooten was from the coast of North Carolina. She was a teacher for a few years but switched careers and became a photographer. Wooten soon opened her own studio in New Bern to support herself and her two sons. About 1911, at the New Bern County Fair, Wooten became possibly the first woman to make aerial photographs when she rode in a Wright Brothers’ plane taking pictures of the area. For the next few years, she continued to fly many more aerial photographic missions as the chief of publicity for the North Carolina National Guard. Even though Wooten opened a second studio in Chapel Hill, she continued to travel and take pictures while relatives managed the studios. According to Charlie Hall of the New Bern Sun Journal, Wooten “was noted for her landscape, architectural and portrait photography, operated photo studios and was a book illustrator. She has been credited with being the state’s most significant photographer during the first half of the twentieth century.” Today’s pictures show Bayard Wooten and her five known Stanly County photographs that were turned into postcards. {Lewis Bramlett – Stanly County Historical Society}