[2] She was the eldest daughter and second child of American pharmacist Benoni Richmond Davison—who became the superintendent of the United States Marine Hospital in Honolulu—and British-Hawaiian chiefess Mary Jane Kekulani Fayerweather.

[3] On her mother's side, she was a great-granddaughter of the British Captain George Charles Beckley and Ahia, a distant relation of the reigning House of Kamehameha.

[6] Davison attended St. Andrew's Priory School in Honolulu, where she was taught by the sisterhoods of the Anglican Church of Hawaii established by King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma.

[9][12] The trustees of Bishop Museum and Kamehameha Schools consulted her and other Hawaiian scholars in the translation of Samuel Kamakau's seminal work Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii into English.

[14] Her other scholarly publications include; "Vengeance of Pele" (1930), the "Legend of Puahuula" (1930), and "Poki — Guardian Dog of Moanalua" (1935), all of which were written for Paradise of the Pacific magazine.

[3] Eleanor H. Williamson notes: Her writing was personal, vivid, and poignant as she described the elegance of court life, with its picturesque and majestic emblems of royalty in the stately kahilis and feather capes, and the genteel and dignified manner of the men and women surrounding the monarch.

[16][18] During World War I, Taylor and her friend Emilie Widemann Macfarlane organized knitting units on behalf of Native Hawaiian soldiers.

[3][19] On September 23, 1921, Taylor wrote an article published in the Honolulu Advertiser that argued for Hawaii's recognition in a proposed Hall of Remembrance to be erected by the Woman's National Foundation in Washington, DC, honoring women from each of the then-forty-eight states.

[3] Taylor also supported many local organizations and was the premier of Māmakakaua (the Daughters and Sons of Hawaiian Warriors), a group composed of the descendants of the high chiefs (aliʻi) from the deposed monarchy.

[21] Richard Weinberg described her in a 1936 interview about the art and craft of Ancient Hawaii in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin: "Mrs. Emma Ahuena Taylor impresses one as a person who has carried a strikingly handsome, youthful appearance into maturity.