Returning to New York City in 1927, Bauer worked at a number of publishing houses, eventually collaborating with American urban critic Lewis Mumford beginning in the late 1920s. It was at his urging that she became involved with the architects of change in post-World War I Europe, among them Ernst May, André Lurçat, and Walter Gropius. Convinced that good social housing could produce good social architecture, and moved by the visible ravages of the Depression, she became a passionate leader in the fight for housing for the poor and in 1934 accepted an appointment by the American Federation of Labor (AFL) to become Executive Director of the new Labor Housing Conference based in Philadelphia. Her book "Modern Housing" (1934) described the housing achievements Bauer had observed in Europe and lessons for the United States capturing attention of New Deal policy-makers who wanted to boost the economy through housing construction. In 1936 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study housing in Europe and the USSR.