She was a founding member of the People's National Party (1938), and the first woman to become president of the Jamaica Union of Teachers in 1949.
[2] In 1938, Osmond Theodore Fairclough, Norman Manley, Dalton-James, and others, founded the People's National Party (PNP).
She ran two times unsuccessfully as a candidate for the House of Representatives from the constituency of Saint Andrew Western (1944 and 1949).
[1] In 1953, Dalton-James was awarded the Queen's Coronation Medal, and in 1958, she received the Order of the British Empire (MBE).
[4] In 1971, the University of the West Indies conferred on her the honorary Doctor of Laws, and in 1975, the Jamaican government awarded her the Order of Distinction (Commander Class).