[1][2] Arias is noted for her defense of Madero's tomb in Mexico City, despite the threat of the Huerta regime.

[4] Eulalia Guzmán, Dolores Sotomayor and Arias founded the Corregidor de Querétaro Vocational School with a curriculum of reading, writing, arithmetic, cooking, drawing and sewing designed to help women improve their economic circumstances.

She participated in the educational literacy drive and became the private secretary of Sara Pérez de Madero,[1] wife of the president.

[4] When General Álvaro Obregón arrived in Mexico City in 1914, he asked who had taken care of the tomb of the deceased president.

Recognizing that it was María Arias, he took out his gun, raised it up and declared: "Those men who are able to take up arms but refused to do so for fear of abandoning their homes and their children, have no excuse.