Herben was a delegate to the 1910 World Missionary Conference. During World War I she was the only woman to serve on the New Jersey Council of National Defense, and was the chairman of the publicity department of the Women's Council for National Defense. She also chaired both the YWCA, and a committee related to food production, distribution, and conservation, and was a member of the Literary and Social Circle of the First Methodist church; in 1918, Mayor H. W. Evans appointed her to represent the town's Community Market at the meeting of the State Board Markets. Shortly after victory was declared in the war, Herben urged that saloons be closed and alcohol sales prohibited on the days of celebration. The following year she traveled to Houston for the annual conference of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, delivering a speech on "Waging Peace".