[2] Her dissertation was adapted by Columbia University Press and published in book form as The Present Status of Socialism in America, for which the prominent British-born socialist John Spargo wrote the introduction.

Hughan made her professional career as an educator, teaching in a series of public and private schools following her graduation from Columbia with her A.M. degree in 1899.

[8] In 1913, the ISS commissioned Hughan to write a book on the principles of socialism to serve as a text for study and discussion by the various chapters of the organization.

[9] The resulting publication, a tome called Facts of Socialism, was an influential text among the young intellectuals who participated in the Intercollegiate Socialist Society's activities, a group which included peace activist Devere Allen, journalist Heywood Broun, researcher and American Civil Liberties Union official Robert W. Dunn, historian Herbert Feis, and publicist Walter Lippmann.

A deeply religious person, Hughan was a committed pacifist who spent the whole of her life fighting the spread of militarism in America.

Hughan joined Frances M. Witherspoon and Tracy Mygatt in forming a number of peace groups linking pacifism, Christianity, and socialist politics.

[3] Hughan and her associates were able to gather the signatures of some 3,500 men to a declaration opposing military enlistment with a view to demonstrating to American political leaders the unpopularity of the European war.

American entry into the war in April 1917 spelled the end of the Anti-Enlistment League, with the government seizing the organization's files and records.

[3] While she was never fired from her public school teaching positions for her political views, Hughan was called into suspicion in the eyes of some New York politicians.

[3] The Committee denied her the Certificate of Character and Loyalty due to her appending the words "This obedience being qualified always by dictates of conscience" to the state's teachers' oath.

Hughan sat on the National Council and was a member of the New York Executive Committee of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a religious pacifist organization, from 1920 to 1923.

[2] The intent behind the WRL was to provide an organizational framework for opponents of militarism who had no traditional religious basis for their pacifist beliefs.

[3] She helped with the organization of public demonstrations, including a series of "No More War" parades in New York City, and was a vigorous opponent of the return to military conscription in 1940.

Alpha Omicron Pi annually awards a prize known as the Jessie Wallace Hughan Cup to the organization's outstanding chapter.