She broke new ground in her research by developing and applying innovative techniques of chemical analysis, dendrochronology, ethnohistory, and Ethnoarchaeology.
She applied the new techniques of dendrochronology and stratigraphic dating of the archaeological deposits to more fully understand the history and evolution of Chetro Ketl.
By 1933, the University of Arizona was faced with financial difficulties due to the Great Depression, and they asked most of the young faculty to take a year's leave of absence, which included Hawley.
Because of her superiority in her research as well as teaching, and her persistence to the idea of equality, she was honored at the "Daughters of the Desert" symposium as a leader among the women anthropologist who have worked in the Southwest.
Hawley served as president of the American Society for Ethnohistory in 1969 and in 1987 she was honored as one of 45 distinguished women featured in a traveling Smithsonian exhibit named "Daughters of the Desert".
The Ghost Ranch of Abiquiu, where she conducted her work in the 1980s, housed her extensive library in a large museum complex that bears her name.
[2] Florence Hawley applied the training she received from A. E. Douglass's dendrochronology class to tree ring analysis in the Chaco Canyon excavations where she worked with the University of New Mexico field program in the summers of 1929, 1930, and 1931.
She collected tree - ring specimens or inspected samples of archaeological wood from the University of Chicago's excavations in southern Illinois.
In 1937, she continued her Midwestern dendrochronological fieldwork and collected 1000 living-tree specimens in eight different states in an effort to identify the climate signal recorded by trees across the Midwest.
[6] In 2019, the Tennessee Valley Authority unearthed tree ring data in their archives that was collected by Hawley but that she was never allowed to publish.
[7] Florence Hawley participated in many field excavations, including her work at the Chetro Ketl site in Chaco Canyon.