Baker worked through the Ladies' Club of the First Presbyterian Church of Houston, with allies such as Lavinia Lovett and Katherine Parker.
She studied the settlement movement of England, and its best-known American practitioner, Jane Addams of the Hull House in Chicago.
As early as 1902, the Ladies' Association established settlement facilities, in some cases, taking over vacant space in store fronts and abandoned churches.
Their initial fifteen-member board of directors included Roxalee Smith Andrews, Marian Holt, and Estelle Sharp.
After Daniel's death, Edith established the Ripley Foundation, with the mission of helping women and children in Houston.
She accepted the legal assistance of Captain James A. Baker, who co-founded the Ripley Foundation as a non-profit corporation with William D. Cleveland and Samuel Maurice McAshan in 1935.
Maurice Sullivan, the design architect for the new building, examined settlement houses in the eastern United States before presenting a plan to the foundation.
In the same year, BakerRipley's seventy centers served a client-base of 500,000, led by its CEO and president, Angela Blanchard.