[1][2] On November 22, 1852, she married Jesse Metcalf Sr.[3] Jesse Metcalf was a cotton buyer in the South for several years prior to the Civil War, later becoming a textile manufacturer in Providence and co-founding the Wanskuck Company in 1862 in the Wanskuck area of Providence.

[5] Helen Metcalf helped to found RISD in 1877 after she and a group of Rhode Island women traveled to the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition celebration, the first worlds fair held in the United States.

[6] In 1873, the president of Brown University, Ezekiel Gilman Robinson, had written that "many intelligent citizens of our State are now desirous that a Scientific School of high order--a school that which, in addition to its more immediate aims shall not fail to provide also for sub-schools of Design, of Drawing, of Civil Engineering, of Architecture, of the Fine Arts--may speedily be established in Rhode Island.

[3] Her involvement was direct and hands-on, and she took a keen interest in everything from teaching methods of the faculty, encouraging the students in their work, arranging the furniture in the most effective ways, and driving school fundraising efforts.

[5] Today, RISD Alumni include many notable creators such as "designer Nicole Miller, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane and three members of the Talking Heads".