[2] She would receive national recognition for her work as a suffragist in 1929, alongside Jane Addams and Catherine Waugh McCulloch.

[2] However, she managed to hold on to her role until 1898, when she resigned and opened her own office as an independent businesswoman, offering legal, business, and real estate services.

[2] From 1914 to 1926, O'Connor relocated to Chicago and Detroit, where she worked on major real estate deals, before returning to Rockford.

[7][8][9][10] Arcadia's first mayor, William Hayes, was ousted, and O'Connor defeated a fellow suffragist, Regina Scholl, in the race to replace him.

[9] She also enlisted women as "suffragette policemen" to "fine" local men, collecting money for the orphanage.

[2] She became Illinois's first woman code officer when she was appointed state superintendent of women's and children's employment in 1937.

[3] Then, in 1942, she became assistant to Thomas O'Malley, who oversaw the Wages and Hours division of the United States Department of Labor for the region of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana.