[2] In 1909 she wrote to the Messenger, a Victorian church newspaper, describing "Chinese and blacks [as] my nearest neighbours", and her reports may have contributed to the establishment of the Australian Inland Mission.

She wrote five books as well as short stories, articles, and verses, and pursued a career as a journalist, becoming editor of the Northern Territory Times and Government Gazette in 1930.

[4][5][6] Litchfield was awarded the coronation medal for outstanding service to the Northern Territory in 1953, becoming its first female justice of the peace in 1955.

Her personal correspondence files contain letters from Aubrey Abbott, McAlister Blain, Arthur Calwell, John Curtin, Dame Mary Gilmore, Bill Harney, Ernestine Hill, Robert Menzies, George Pearce and Norman Rockwell.

[9] She is also the subject of a television documentary produced by Jeannine Baker, Holding a Tiger by the Tail: Jessie Litchfield (Earshot, ABC Radio National, 2015).