In 1928, after teaching English at Vassar College for four years, Wood moved to Chicago and found a job with the Home Modernizing Bureau, a trade organization.
This organization collapsed with the stock market, however, and soon after Wood began her career as a housing advocate and planner.
In 1937, Wood assumed the position of Executive Director for the nascent Chicago Housing Authority, working to structure city management of three housing projects built by the Federal Public Works Administration, including the Jane Addams, Julia C. Lathrop and Trumbull Park Homes.
[2] Through her productive partnership with Mayor Edward Kelly, Wood is credited with running an agency free of corruption and tirelessly pursuing a goal of providing high-quality, racially integrated housing.
After Mayor Kelly left office, and following years of often violent battles with city council members who wished to limit new public housing construction to black neighborhoods, Wood was fired from the CHA in 1954.