In 1880, Schreiber became the first woman elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, which had been strictly and exclusively male until then. However, despite this great achievement, she was not permitted to attend meetings or engage in policy-making, and she remained the only woman on the academy until 1933 (53 years later), when the second woman, Marion Long, was elected. The National Gallery of Canada holds the painting that she submitted toward her Academy diploma. Titled "The Croppy Boy (The Confession of an Irish Patriot)", it is based on the Irish ballad "The Croppy Boy", which was popular during the Irish rebellion of the 1790s. It tells the story of a youth who stops in a church to confess his sins as he prepares for the battle of Wexford. His audience, however, is not a Catholic priest, but a disguised British soldier who arrests him and takes him for execution. The painting shows the youth on his knees, earnestly addressing the cloaked soldier, whose uniform is visible to the viewer but not to the penitent. The two figures are united by the red in their clothing, but the soldier occupies the shadowy portion of the canvas, with the youth on the lighter side, perhaps suggesting Schreiber's sympathies.