[5] Her first literary work was a series of stories for children, which appeared between 1864 and 1870 in Our Young Folks and The Riverside Magazine, and in book form as the Ainslee Series; then, in rapid succession, she published: His Grandmothers (1877); Six Sinners (1878); Unto the Third and Fourth Generation (1880); Four, and What They Did (1880); The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking; Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes (1881); Patty Pearson's Boy: A Tale of Two Generations (1881); The Problem of the Poor: A Record of Quiet Work in Unquiet Places (1882); Under Green Apple Boughs (1882); The American Girl's Home-Book of Work and Play (1883); The Housekeeper's Year-Book (1888); Mrs. Herndon's Income (1883); The What-to-Do Club: A Story for Girls (1885); Miss Melinda's Opportunity (1886); Prisoners of Poverty: Women Wage-workers, their Trades and their Lives (1887 and 1893); Roger Berkeley's Probation (1888); Prisoners of Poverty Abroad (1888); Darkness and Daylight (1891); In Foreign Kitchens (1894); Some Passages in the Practice of Dr. Martha Scarborough (1895); and Household Economics (1897).

The Stuart family, after settling in the United States, was prominent in early colonial affairs, three generations fighting and dying in Indian, French and revolutionary wars.

Endowed with abundant vitality, great imagination, power of dramatic expression and a profoundly sympathetic nature, it was impossible for the young woman to live an idle life.

[7] At the age of 23, under her married name, Helen C. Weeks, she began work for children, writing steadily for Our Young Folks, the Riverside Magazine and other juvenile periodicals.

[9] About 1882, she became literary and household editor of Our Continent, and wrote for its pages the popular novel entitled Under Green Apple Boughs, followed by the What-to-do-Club.

Some of the conclusions reached by Campbell appeared in her novel, Mrs. Herndon's Income, which was printed first as a serial in the Christian Union, and was afterward issued in book form.

This powerful book at once lifted Campbell to an important place as a novelist, while her thrilling story won the attention of philanthropists and reformers the world over.

From 1881 until 1884, Campbell was literary editor of the Continent, published in Philadelphia, and in 1889, she assumed charge of a department in the Springfield, Massachusetts, Good Housekeeping, entitled "Woman's Work and Wages."

It may be regarded as the seed from which followed a vast amount of literature upon the topic, resulting in great amelioration in the condition of a large body of workers.

[7] In 1894, she was appointed professor of household economics in the school of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, and this chair she continued to fill until 1897, when she accepted a call to the State Agricultural College of Kansas.

She was active in many organizations that advocated female empowerment and associated with many intellectuals and original thinkers, including writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

She reinforces our consciousness that the final remedy lies farther back than in mere increase of wages or division of profits."