[1] She taught in the Freedman School, Yorktown, Virginia, during the last year of the Civil War (1865), then in Howland Institute, Union Springs, New York (except 1871–72) till 1876.

She was a co-founder of the Idaho Industrial Institute, 1900, and served as principal of its girls' department before becoming a trustee, vice-president, and chair of its Educational Committee.

Giles Slocum was a Friend, as were all his descendants in direct line until Jane M. joined the Congregational Church in Canandaigua, New York.

The French gentleman who purchased and named the town after himself lived in luxuriant style in a country seat which he established, and as her grandfather became his private secretary, the young Quaker boy grew up in an atmosphere which served to broaden his horizon and to educate him.

He supported a small school for the children of the hamlet, and there, in Slocumville, Jane began her education at the age of two-and-one-half years.

[1][4][2] Before the close of the war, her zeal to take some active part in the conflict led her to join the first volunteers for teaching the Freedmen.

A little school building was erected on Darlington Heights, Virginia, on York River, and there she devoted eight months of labor to the new race problem.

An imperative call to Howland School, Union Springs, New York, resulted in further association with old teachers, and for ten years, she continued to labor there, building up the first department for girls in civil government and political economy.

[1][4] In 1878, Canandaigua, New York, Caroline Comstock, Harriet Hasbrouck, Charlotte P. Crocker, and Slocum[6] established Granger Place School.

[1][4] She went to New York City to study social conditions and there taught by class lectures on civics and economics in schools, colleges, parlors, and halls, working meantime with Wilson L. Gilb as instructor in the Patriotic League, and becoming familiar with his idea of 'The School City' which was helpful in her later work in Watertown, New York, and elsewhere.

[4] Slocum's former pupils, principally of Howland Institute and Granger Place School, endowed her with a birthday gift of US$1,200 which, with gift of plan and specifications from her brother Samuel Gifford Slocum, architect in New York City, materialized in a bungalow, a home, named "Friendship lodge", for her old age among the Industrial Institute buildings in Weiser.