Under the pen name of "Judith Jorgenson", she conducted a column of stories of real life, "Around the Evening Lamp", for many years, and it was considered especially creditable.

[1][2][3] As editor of The News Junior, she became the literary guide and mentor of the children of Iowa, who competed for artistic pictures which hung in hundreds of schoolhouses all over the state.

[4] Born in a home that was a station of the Underground Railroad, with hiding of fugitive slaves on their way to Canada and freedom-, he was ever an advocate and champion of political, social, and economic liberty.

She spent a year in European travel and study, including a course of lectures in the Victoria Lyceum of Berlin, and an inspection of the school system of Germany and Italy.

She became associate editor of the Des Moines Mail and Times,[5] which position she held over a year, when an offer caused her to become editor-in-chief of the Northwestern Journal of Education.

[5] Her later journalistic work was in connection with the Des Moines Daily News,[5] upon which she served as reporter and editorial and special writer for several years.

[7] In 1884, Durley was appointed a member of the State Education Board of Examiners for Iowa, which position she held until 1888, serving most of her time as secretary.

[5] The United Sisterhood of Peace was organized at Los Angeles in June, 1916, by Durley, who drew to her aid seven women, who became the Mother Circle.

Believing also that war was not the last word in human wisdom, members of this organization were happy to enter upon a definite constructive plan for universal and enduring peace.

The obligation members assumed was: "We pledge ourselves to be faithful members of the United Sisterhood of Peace; to organize and conduct circles in affiliation with the mother circle, and to work untiringly for unity, peace, and harmony in our own neighborhoods, our own country, and throughout the world, always thinking and speaking well of all persons, races, and nations, and forgetting their faults.

Henry Ford and William Jennings Bryan wrote expressing their high appreciation of the plan and their belief in its effectiveness.

[11] She was the founder of the Des Moines Home for the Aged, the largest institution of the kind in Iowa; and led in the organization of the Deutsche Gesellschaft, a club for German literature and conversation.

[12] As a girl at Iowa City, she became acquainted with Susan B. Anthony and Mary A. Livermore; and as a clubwoman at Des Moines, she became the friend of such women as Julia Ward Howe.

Iowa's most eminent men and women of letters, people such as Emerson Hough, Woods Hutchinson, and Alice French (Octave Thanet) met there to exchange experiences.