In 1929, a one-man art show at Halpert's Downtown Gallery marked the zenith of his New York period.
In the mid-1930s, he began an academic career joining Louisiana State University, becoming instructor first, then assistant professor (sculpture, wood carving, stone cutting).
Demila and Duncan Ferguson met with such Socialist Workers Party (SWP) leaders as James Cannon, Albert Goldman and Felix Morrow.
After having rejected the offer to become chairman of the Arts Department of Queens College, he found employment at the Crucible Steel plant where he worked as a lathe operator.
For many years he was an active SWP member, writing articles under pseudonyms and doing translations from French language material.
Among the few pieces of sculpture which Ferguson completed after becoming chiefly a party worker, were busts of Trotsky and James P. Cannon.
Demila ultimately left her husband and, after a period of depression, Ferguson began an affair with Laura Slobe, an artist and member of the SWP.
By the mid-1950s Ferguson's health worsened, so that he had to abandon his job and live off dividends from stock left to him by his father, who had died in 1945.