At the time, she was the only female staff artist working for a major American newspaper.

[1] Her first work to receive critical attention was The Bridge of Sighs, a depiction invoking the suicidal woman from the poem of the same name by Thomas Hood, which appeared on the cover of The Aldine in 1872 and at the Women’s Pavilion at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.

[4] Davis began working for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper around 1880.

Some significant people she depicted include President Rutherford B. Hayes and his family,[5] Ruth Cleveland, and Ute tribal leaders.

She also worked as an illustrator for the Salvation Army newspaper The War Cry and the children’s book publisher McLoughlin Brothers.