Shaw was both a medical doctor and ordained as the first woman minister of the Methodist Protestant Church. She was als​o a prominent advocate for the temperance movement, and dedicated to the cause of woman suffrage. Shaw believed that prohibiting alcohol and all of its associated ills could only be done by enfranchising women with voting rights. As a member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, she traveled across the country and around the world advancing the notion that women voters would necessarily vote for prohibition.

In 1904, Shaw became president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), leaving a mixed legacy. Both Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were deeply critical of Shaw’s leadership. While she fought for the rights of working-class women, Shaw was largely uninterested in obtaining suffrage for women of color. A committed nativist, Shaw’s anti-immigrant politics were laced through her speeches and lectures. Under her direction, NAWSA treated African American suffragists and other minorities with hostility. Though not an advocate for racial equality, Shaw did believe in ending racial violence, and gave speeches promoting a woman’s right to vote as an effective way to combat the epidemic of lynching in the Jim Crow South.