Career
As an editor she sought to encourage other writers with African American ancestry by publishing their works in a short periodical. Writing under the name "Mistress A. East. Johnson," her approach to fiction has been compared to Emma Dunham Kelley and Paul Laurence Dunbar, focusing on the social circumstances of her characters rather than identifying ethnic or "racial" aspects.
Johnson"s works include children"s literature, Sunday school fiction, and three novels: Clarence and Corrinne (American Baptist Publication Society of Philadelphia), The Hazeley Family (1894), and Martina Meriden (1901).