After graduation, Sunderland became a teacher in the high school in
Aurora, Illinois, where quickly, she made principal, holding that position during the period of 1866–71. In 1871, in
Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, she married Rev.
Jabez T. Sunderland, a clergyman, first in the Baptist faith, and then Unitarian. They were the parents of two daughters, including Florence; and a son, Edson. From 1872 to 1875, Sunderland's home was in
Northfield, Massachusetts, then three years in Chicago,
Illinois, and in 1878, the family removed to
Ann Arbor, Michigan. During the period of 1877–98, she worked as a teacher in the high schools of Chicago and Ann Arbor. As a high school teacher and principal, her specialties were Latin, English literature and history. Sunderland was always very active in the work which commonly falls upon a minister's wife. She affiliated with the Women's Western Unitarian Conference (president, 1882–87) as well as the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Women. She held many positions of honor in the
Unitarian denomination, being one of the best known of its women speakers in its national and local gatherings. Though not an ordained minister, she preached and lectured extensively having more calls to preach and lecture than she could fill. Sunderland appeared in the pulpit and one winter, while a resident of Ann Arbor, where her husband was pastor of the Unitarian Church, she took charge of every evening service for the season, while her husband occupied the pulpit Sunday mornings. During this time, she gave a series of 28 lectures on "Religious Thought of the Great Thinkers of the Nineteenth Century", her specific subjects being
Haeckel,
Goethe,
Emerson,
Browning,
Tennyson, and others. At the same time, she carried forward her literary studies, having taken nearly or quite every philosophical course offered in the
University of Michigan, and many of the literary, historical and politico-economic courses. In 1889, she received from the university the degree of
Ph.B., and in 1892, the degree of Ph.D. Her post-graduate work in the University of Michigan was mainly in philosophy and psychology, the subject of her thesis for her Ph.D. being "The Relation of the Philosophy of Kant to that of Hegel". She was a thorough student of Browning, and often gave addresses, papers and lectures on Browning's writings. She was a no less careful student of
Henrik Ibsen, on whose dramas she often spoke. Sunderland was for a number of years an active worker in the
National Association for the Advancement of Women (director, 1885–95) In 1893, she was a prominent speaker at the World's Parliament of Religions and at the
World's Congress of Representative Women. In 1878, Sunderland served as associate editor of the
Illinois Social Science Journal, Chicago. She was the author of
Stories from Genesis, 1890;
Heroes and Heroines, 1895; and
Centennial Memorial to James Martineau, 1905, the last being an extended summary and re-statement of the theistic philosophy of
Martineau. At the request of leaders in the Unitarian denomination, she prepared three volumes of selections on religious lines. She was the author of several Sunday school manuals which had wide use, and of a number of pamphlets on religious and educational subjects. Sunderland traveled extensively, having been abroad twice, once for three months and once for thirteen months, the last time extending her travels to Greece, Egypt and Palestine. She also traveled to India. ==Later life==