[1] Roe began working at a newspaper in El Dorado, Arkansas, where her parents had moved.

The paper also asked her to cover local politics, prize fights, chess matches and Wall Street.

She moved back to New York to take a job with the Universal News Service as a feature writer, keeping the position until 1937.

[1][3] The same year, she married fellow reporter John Lewis, who she had met while covering the Mary Aster trial.

[1][4] In 1941, she became a syndicated columnist and the women's editor for the Associated Press (AP), a position that she held for nineteen years.

She anticipated that women would be six feet tall, compete in men's sports such as football and wrestling and could even be president.

[10] In 1960, Roe retired from the AP and started teaching at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

[12] Her career at the AP was described by the journalist Dean Earl English as "a breakthrough for women in journalism.