Through her work as a literary editor and reviewer, she encouraged black writers to represent the African-American community realistically and positively.

[3] She is known for discovering and mentoring other African-American writers, including Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay.

[11] For many years she was considered to be the first black woman accepted to Phi Beta Kappa society,[8] but later research revealed this was actually Mary Annette Anderson.

In 1926, Fauset left The Crisis and returned to teaching, this time at DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City, where she may have taught a young James Baldwin.

[citation needed] In July 1918, Fauset became a contributor to The Crisis, sending articles for the "Looking Glass" column from her home in Philadelphia.

As Literary Editor, Fauset fostered the careers of many of the most well-known authors of the Harlem Renaissance, including Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Anne Spencer, George Schuyler, Arna Bontemps, and Langston Hughes.

In his memoir The Big Sea, Hughes wrote, "Jessie Fauset at The Crisis, Charles Johnson at Opportunity, and Alain Locke in Washington were the people who midwifed the so-called New Negro Literature into being.

"[8] Beyond nurturing the careers of other African-American modernist writers, Fauset was also a prolific contributor to both The Crisis and The Brownies' Book.

During her time with The Crisis, she contributed poems and short stories, as well as a novella, translations from the French of writings by black authors from Europe and Africa, and a multitude of editorials.

She believed that T. S. Stribling's novel Birthright, written by a white man about black life, could not fully portray her people.

The Great Migration resulted in many African Americans moving to industrial cities; in some cases, individuals used this change as freedom to try on new identities.

Some used partial European ancestry and appearance to pass as white, for temporary convenience or advantage: for instance, to get better service in a store or restaurant, or to gain a job.

Others entered white society nearly permanently to take advantage of economic and social opportunities, sometimes leaving darker-skinned relatives behind.

[18] In the 1924 June academic journal Opportunity, Howard University professor Montgomery Gregory gave praise to Fauset's work because he felt she made clear of the "better elements" of African-American life "to those who know us only as domestic servants, 'uncles', or criminals".

Locke felt that the reason people stopped talking about Fauset was due to a change in the literary scene because of the Great Depression and Second World War.

Jenkins also argues that Fauset is alongside other early black feminists because in addition to focusing on racial identity, she explores "female consciousness".

American and African-American literature professor Ann duCille compares Fauset to other Harlem Renaissance writers such as Nella Larsen for expressing feminism in her literary work.