She was a curator of the Museum of New Mexico from 1937 to 1969 and published numerous papers regarding the cultures of the Puebloan peoples.

Women were not taught excavation techniques, as a means of dissuading them from pursuing a career in archeology[4] and Ferguson, who had received the only fellowship in the anthropology department faced the discrimination and tension her gender caused in the male-dominated field.

The appointment was one of the first curatorial positions for a woman in the United States and was followed with Hewett's hiring of Bertha P. Dutton as ethnology curator of the museum.

[12] Beginning in 1938, she served as a judge of Pueblo pottery at the Santa Fe Indian Market.

[12] Ferguson arranged lectures and activities for the Archaeological Society of New Mexico and though she was unpaid for her service to them, she served as de facto secretary of the organization from 1943 to 1956.

[13] In 1944, she began preparatory work on Juan de Oñate's capital at the Mission San Gabriel combining archaeological and historical methods.

[13] After the Hidalgo County excavation, Marjorie Lambert began to focus more on education and cultural preservation.