Norton was also a novelist and lecturer, and she became the president of the Working Women's Association in 1869, shortly before it dissolved.
[4] Working with Susan B. Anthony, Sarah Norton campaigned for the admission of women at the Cornell University, which she called “that stronghold of feminine prejudice,” and the two women received the support of its founder, Ezra Cornell.
She also firmly opposed abortion as stated in her article "Tragedy - Social and Domestic", published in Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, in which she states that "perhaps there will come a time when an unmarried mother will not be despised because of her motherhood… and when the right of the unborn to be born will not be denied or interfered with.
[6] Having lost her fortune, Sarah Norton died at age 72 in 1910, in Troy, N.Y. in poverty.
[1][7] Her obituary in the January 8, 1910 edition of The Washington Times [3] recorded her later life as alone, friendless and surrounded by all the evidences of poverty.