Sartain set up a studio in Philadelphia in 1875 where she created paintings and engravings. Over the course of her career she made copies of paintings in Spanish and Italian galleries, portraits, genre paintings, and was the first woman to practice the art of the mezzotint in the United States and Europe. Among her works were period scenes that depicted submissive women with downcast eyes as in "Italian Woman" and "The Reproof". Sartain exhibited her works in cities along the East Coast of the United States and was the only woman to win a gold medal at the 1876 World Fair in Philadelphia for "The Reproof". She won the Mary Smith Prize for best picture by a woman at the 1881 and 1883 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts exhibits. Sartain worked as art editor for the paper "Our Continent" from 1881 to 1883. She was then the art editor for "New England Bygones" (1883) by Ellen C. H. Rollins. Joseph M. Pennell said that Sartain was "the only trained woman art editor I ever knew". Sartain exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts and at the Pennsylvania Building of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.