Norris used her fiction to promote family and moralistic values, such as the sanctity of marriage, the nobility of motherhood, and the importance of service to others.

Initially, she found employment in a department store, which was soon followed by work in an accounting office and then the Mechanic's Institute Library.

A publisher asked her to expand it into a novelette, which became a national sensation and earned the praise of Theodore Roosevelt for its celebration of large families.

A devout Catholic, she wrote the book in part as a commentary against birth control, which was rapidly influencing women's attitudes about motherhood.

Her 1914 novel Saturday's Child received a positive, lengthy review from William Dean Howells, who remarked on her sensitivity to class issues.

Norris became involved in various social causes, including women's suffrage, Prohibition, pacifism, and organizations to benefit children and the poor.

In 1919 the family moved to a ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Saratoga, California, adjacent to the Villa Montalvo estate of James Duval Phelan.