Disliking the occupational options commonly open to women, she instead started working as a researcher for a historian during the
Civil War before turning to the periodical industry. From 1869, she was connected with various newspapers in
Newark and
New York. She began newspaper work in the editorial department of the
Newark, New Jersey Morning Register, then conducted by her brother, Richard, and was also the Newark reporter for
New York Tribune. She was the New York correspondent of the
Transcript; and also worked for the
Boston Evening Transcript, where she used the pen name "Brunswick". Gilder became literary editor for ''
Scribner's Monthly before becoming a drama and music critic for the New York Herald'' until 1880. In
Trenton, New Jersey, she was employed at the
state adjutant general's office; in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the US Mint; and in 1881, at
Newark, New Jersey, she worked as a copyist of the
registrar of deeds. In that same year, she and her brother Richard co-founded
The Critic, a
literary magazine, where she served as an editor from January 1881 to September 1906. Her editor role with
The Critic was shared with her brother Joseph. When
The Critic merged with ''
Putnam's Monthly'', she wrote a popular regular column for it called "The Lounger". Gilder opposed
women's right to vote. In an article titled "Why I Am Opposed to Woman Suffrage", printed in May 1894 in ''
Harper's Bazaar'', she argued that women were not strong enough to participate in politics. It would be "too public, too wearing, and too unfitted to the nature of women", she wrote. She further argued that women would find a "sufficiently engrossing 'sphere' in the very important work of training her children". Her novels include
The Autobiography of a Tom-boy (1900) and
The Tom-boy at Work (1904). ==Personal life==