Although Morgan devoted much of her professional career to designing domestic architecture, many of her early commissions were for middle-class houses to be built on small suburban lots. With the suburban expansion in the East Bay, she had a ready source for commissions. Typically these houses are understated, unobtrusive elements in the landscape. The Shingle Style, originally a northeastern style, was introduced in California by the Reverend Joseph Worcester when he built a brown shingle home in Piedmont in 1879. In Shingle Style buildings the exterior is stripped of excess decoration and shingles provide a continuous covering.
Chimneys are often clinker brick and windows are grouped in casements.
Often rafters are exposed. These elements recur in Morgan's early East Bay houses with economical board and batten used as well as redwood shingles. She employed bands of casements as well as corner windows. Although Greene and Greene, Pasadena architects, designed the most elegant houses in this style, the smaller Craftsman bungalo enjoyed much popularity in the early decades of the twentieth century. The Craftsman house was designed to be part of the natural environment with porches, loggias, and pergolas integrating the house with its setting.