Shaw, along with actress Jessie Bonstelle, designed the Woman's National Theatre in the early twentieth century.

[4] One of the major factors of Shaw's success as a speaker and suffragist was due to her association with clubs that were used to gain wider cultural and social acceptance of different professions.

Actresses formed clubs to develop organizational and speaking skills, which later helped Shaw in her work for the women's suffrage movement.

The charter designated women to join that "engaged in dramatic, musical, and literary pursuits with the purpose of rendering them helpful to each other.

A main component of the League were the lessons given to young actresses that taught them how to create their own costumes in dressmaking classes.

Shaw and many of her supporters left to form the Gamut Club, which had a more relaxed atmosphere and welcomed women of all different kinds of professions.

An early edition of The Theatre Magazine claimed that "to see Mary Shaw act...is inevitably to feel an interest in the woman behind the actress.

She often chose her roles with a feminist mindset as most plays at the time were created by men and did not portray women correctly.

[10] Shaw believed that each gender needed to understand the other and "she wished to see more women successfully entering the professional arena in direct competition with men" to create platonic relationships.

Shaw aimed to keep membership dues in her own club low enough to accommodate professional women of modest means.

Though originally housed in a temporary space, her dreamed of building a facility like the men's club: a residential clubhouse with a stage, reading rooms, and even a pool would come true.

One example is the thousands of activists whom Shaw assembled for a silent "Peace Parade" that took place in New York City protesting the war.