Living in a world that judged Indigenous people and women harshly, Johnson had to draw upon all the resources available to her in order to work out a then problematic professional life without threatening the public. Writer Arthur Stringer wrote that she had considerable talent for disguise; during a conversation between the two of them in a modest hotel room, she tended to her ironing. He wrote, "She was not quite as primitive as she pretended. Or, to put it more charitably, she was not as elemental as her audiences liked to think her. She was, in one way, quite patrician in mind and spirit." Class was an essential part of her repertoire; by clinging to its privileges Johnson was able to counteract other disadvantages.