This controversy led Tufts to be banned from the organization and to become an advocate for women's, labor, and social rights.

[1] In 1875, the family moved to Massachusetts, where Helen graduated from Cotting High School in Lexington in 1892.

These lists included the organizations such as the National Federation of Women's Clubs, the American Peace Society, and individuals like Jane Addams, William Allen White and Mary Wooley.

Fifteen DAR members, called the Committee on Protest and headed by Bailie, signed the pamphlet and helped to distribute it throughout the United States.

In 1956 Tufts book, Darling Daughter, a satire about the DAR blacklists and the red scare, was published.

Through Born, Tufts met William Bailie, originally from Belfast, who lived in and owned a vegetarian restaurant co-op.

[2] Sheila Rowbotham's Rebel Crossings: New Women, Free Lovers, and Radicals in Britain and the United States is an account of the activist life of Tufts, along with William Bailie (her husband), Helena Born, Miriam Daniell, Gertrude Dix, and Robert Nicol.