Later, she served aboard a pair of military hospital ships on the Mississippi, the City of Memphis and the Hazel Dell.

[2] After the war, Safford studied medicine, graduating from the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women in 1869.

[3][4] She developed a plan for mass housing centered on a common service area for cooperative housekeeping to reduce drudgery for women.

[1] Safford was involved in the women's suffrage movement and counted the activists Mary Livermore and Alice Stone Blackwell among her friends.

She was a proponent of dress reform, a member of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, and a believer in free love.

[4] She retired in 1886 due to poor health and spent her later years in Tarpon Springs, Florida, with her brother Anson and his family.