Her father was the educator Edwin David Sanborn, who occupied the chair of Latin and English literature, at Dartmouth College, for nearly fifty years,[1] In 1859, he accepted the Latin professorship and presidency of Washington University in St. Louis, returning four years later to the chair of oratory and literature at Dartmouth, which he held until he retired from active work.

Daily writing under skilled criticism, studying the light and shade of word and expression, the use of synonyms, pointed the "inevitable nib" to her pen and also to her speech, so adding another power to naturally great mental endowment.

[1] She inherited a love for teaching, and began that employment in her father's house, then went with him to St. Louis, Missouri where she taught in Mary Institute, at a salary of US$500per year, of which she was very proud.

After, she taught elocution at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, so well that Henry Ward Beecher said, "There used to be a few prize pumpkins here, but now each pupil is doing good work."

No one could go over this collection of complete and exact tables without knowing English letters correctly nor look at one diagram five minutes unprofitably.

During her three years at Smith, Sanborn lectured in Springfield, Massachusetts at Anice Potter Terhune's home, and in many towns near the college.

[3] Returning, Sanborn began teaching in New York City, and also lecturing, first in Edith Minturn Stokes's parlor, till, outgrowing it, she moved to rooms of the Young Women's Christian Association, and finally to those in Dr. Howard Crosby's church, speaking to large audiences there.

Some of her other books were Home Pictures of English Poets, A Truthful Woman in Southern California, Vanity and Insanity; Shadows of Genius, Purple and Gold, Grandmother's Garden, and My Literary Zoo.

[4] She lived with her sister, Mrs. Paul Babcock, at Montclair, New Jersey, or in New York, some part of each winter; but her home was at Breezy Meadows, in Medway, Massachusetts, where she "adopted" an abandoned farm, which later she deserted for a farm only a short distance beyond it, on the opposite side of the road, where she settled down to agriculture, hospitality, and authorship.

[4] According to Howe & Graves (1904):—"There is nothing tempestuous or gusty about her composition, yet it is full of anecdote, spirit, wit — keen thrusts in plenty, but without spite, worded to a nicety, but never shorn of strength.