Barbara had a sophisticated grasp of the importance of the press in influencing public opinion; her uncle, Octavius Smith, was a major shareholder in the Westminster Review. Subsequently she became the major shareholder in the English Woman's Journal (1858–64), founded primarily by herself and Bessie Rayner Parkes, for which she wrote many articles, continuing Smith family tradition by writing a series of abolitionist articles protesting against slavery in the southern states of North America, which she had visited in 1857–8. In an article published in a feminist journal called the Waverley, and subsequently reprinted as a pamphlet entitled Women and Work (1857), Barbara argued that middle-class women must not be denied meaningful work. The offices of the English Woman's Journal in Langham Place became a centre for a wide variety of feminist enterprises. These included a women's reading-room and dining club, offices for the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, and offices for training law copiers. In conjunction with these activities Emily Faithfull set up the Victoria Press, which trained and employed female compositors. Barbara also helped Maria Rye set up the Female Emigration Society to help women (especially governesses) who could not find work in England to emigrate to the colonies. In 1863 Barbara appointed Emily Davies as temporary editor of the English Woman's Journal when Bessie needed a break. This was the start of an important partnership which continued after the close of the journal in 1864.

By 1854 Parkes had published Remarks on the Education of Girls and Leigh Smith A Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Most Important Laws of England Concerning Women. In the following year they formed a committee to organize a petition to the House of Commons to reform the laws relating to married women's property. In Edinburgh in 1856, Parkes met Isa Craig [see Knox, Isabella], also a journalist and poet, and with her contributed to a Glasgow women's periodical, the Waverley Journal. In April 1857 Parkes became editor, advertising the paper as ‘a working woman's journal’, and established an office in Princes Street, London. Craig came to London to assist her, but by January 1858 the paper had failed. A month later, the English Woman's Journal was founded by forming a limited liability company, in which Leigh Smith, now married to Eugène Bodichon, was the major shareholder, through her sister Anne's holding (since married women could not own shares). Male shareholders and sympathizers included Samuel Courtauld and Peter Alfred Taylor.

Parkes and Bodichon gathered around them committed and active women, mainly single. Matilda Hays, novelist, translator of George Sand, and companion of the American actress Charlotte Cushman, was a close friend of Parkes, and an original shareholder and co-editor of the journal. In November 1858 Emily Faithfull, a Surrey rector's daughter, described by Parkes as 'a most hearty young worker … who has brought us a host of subscriptions', came to work on the journal before she founded the Victoria Press (Parkes to Bodichon, 5 Jan 1859, Parkes papers, 5.86). Maria Rye, also an original shareholder and briefly the secretary of the committee to reform the law on married women's property, was especially interested in finding work for educated middle-class women. So too were Jessie Boucherett, a strong Conservative from a Lincolnshire landed family, who came to join the group in 1859, and the poet Adelaide Procter, who together founded the Society for the Promotion of the Employment of Women (SPEW) in 1859. Emily Davies, daughter of a Gateshead rector, and sister of the Christian socialist Llewelyn Davies, first encountered the group in late 1859 and for a time worked for the cause in Gateshead; after moving to London in 1862 she acted as editor of the English Woman's Journal in 1863, and worked continuously to improve the status of middle-class women. Sarah Lewin was employed as secretary and bookkeeper. Also very important were the group's wealthy patrons. Helena, comtesse de Noailles (1824?–1908), who had substantially helped Elizabeth Blackwell's medical career, became a major shareholder in February 1859. In December 1859 Theodosia Monson, Lady Monson, a friend of Hays, took for them new and more spacious premises at 19 Langham Place, where a reading room and coffee shop could be provided, associated societies could meet, and initiatives could be developed.