One of a small number of top female leaders of the Socialist Party of America during the years prior to World War I, Maley is best remembered as the first woman to run for governor of Washington state in 1912.

[3] Maley was elected the first Secretary of Local Minneapolis of the Socialist Party of America at the time of its formation late in the summer of 1901.

[4] In 1903, Maley was made part of the staff of Julius Wayland's seminal Socialist weekly, the Appeal to Reason, based in the small Southeastern Kansas town of Girard.

[8] Maley was regarded by her peers as a talented and effective public speaker and she spent extensive time in Los Angeles in 1911 speaking on behalf of the mayoral campaign of Job Harriman in that year.

[9] In September 1911, Maley made her way to the Pacific Northwestern region of the United States to take over as editor of the Socialist newspaper The Commonwealth, based in the mill town of Everett, Washington.

[1] A return to New York City followed, with Maley taking a job as an instructor at the Socialist Party's Rand School of Social Science.

[9] Returning to Socialist Party work after her husband's death, Maley hit the road as a touring lecturer on behalf of the organization.

[2] Back home in Minneapolis, Maley returned to work again as an assistant to Thomas Van Lear, the Socialist mayor of the city.