It was largely due to McBride's activism that the state of Massachusetts began hiring matrons for city police stations and built a separate facility for female inmates in Boston.

[1][2] She began her career at the New-York Tribune before taking a job in 1880 as a special editorial writer for The Boston Post .

She headed a department of American Art, and wrote articles about domestic science for The Decorator and Furnisher, The New England Magazine, and other periodicals.

[7] In the early 1880s, McBride organized the first Woman's Department at the annual New England Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Institute fair in Boston.

She was survived by a son, James McBride, who worked as a naval architect at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy.

[3] Among those who attended her funeral in Arlington Heights were members of the WCTU, NEWPA, DAR, and the Home for Intemperate Women.