Gilder editorialized against women's suffrage. He wrote that giving women the right to vote would destroy the "home woman" who was an anchor of family stability in a changing world. He regarded women as guardians of the nation's morality, and excluded anything from the magazine that would "corrupt" women. Gilder was a member of the Simplified Spelling Board. He was a leader in the organization of the Citizens' Union, a founder and the first president of the Kindergarten Association, and of the New York Association for the Blind. Gilder was chairman of the first Tenement House Commission in New York City. During his service on the commission, he arranged to be called whenever there was a fire in a tenement house, and at all hours of the night he risked his health and his life itself to see the perils besetting the dwellers of the tenements, in order to make wise recommendations as to legislation that would minimize these perils. Family On June 3, 1874, Gilder married a daughter of Commodore George Coleman De Kay, Helena de Kay Gilder (1846–1916). Gilder met his wife, Helena de Kay Gilder, in May 1872 while she was visiting the offices of Scribner's Monthly, where Richard Watson Gilder was at the time working as an editor. About a year and a half later, in February 1874, Helena and Richard became engaged. Richard Watson Gilder and Helena de Kay Gilder are known to have kept a lengthy correspondence with each other via letter over the course of their marriage. Helena de Kay Gilder is also known to be the subject of love poems written by Richard Watson Gilder, and they partnered together on some of his books, with her working as the illustrator, such as in Two Worlds and Other Poems (1891). She was a talented painter and a founder of the Art Students League and Society of American Artists. She also modeled for, and was an unrequited love of, the painter Winslow Homer. Gilder and de Kay were the models for the characters Thomas and Augusta Hudson in Wallace Stegner's Pulitzer-prize winning novel, Angle of Repose. Their son, Rodman de Kay Gilder (1877–1953), became an author and married Louise Comfort Tiffany, a daughter of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Their daughter, Rosamond Gilder, was a notable theater critic. A celebrated plaster sculpture of the family by Augustus Saint-Gaudens is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.