For several years, Burt had charge of the legislative interests of the union, and several laws for the protection of women and young girls resulted from her efforts.

[2] Her efforts on behalf of temperance occurred without intermission, with the exception of seven months spent in the sick room of her sister, Mrs.

[3] She engaged the Opera House and delivered a lecture on temperance, March 24, 1874, Professor Browne, her former instructor, presiding.

Immediately after, in Auburn, a Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was organized and Burt elected president, which position she held two years.

She took hold of the enterprise, enlarged and improved the paper in many ways, pushed its interests; and during the subsequent year, its subscription list was nearly doubled.

[5] In her first annual address, she recommended a change in the form of the executive committee, substituting for the three previously elected by ballot, in addition to the general officers, the vice-presidents of the state, who were the presidents of the county unions.

Other measures recommended by her were the publication of a state paper, the opening of state headquarters in New York City, securing permanent headquarters, putting up a building on the permanent state fair grounds at Syracuse, New York, creating the departments of Non-Alcoholics in Medicine and Rescue Work for Girls, the memorializing of the Democratic and Republican parties in behalf of prohibition and for the enfranchisement of woman, and petitioning the constitutional convention of 1894 for the last two purposes.

In 1885–87, she was superintendent of the Department of Social Purity, and at once entered upon a campaign to raise "the age of consent" for young girls.

In 1891–92, she led in the legislative work that resulted in the closing of the New York State exhibit at the World's Fair on Sundays, and in the passage of the bill prohibiting the employment of barmaids in saloons.

Nothing stopped her from meeting with women and explaining the methods of temperance work, while she quickly selected those best fitted to become leaders.

For several years, Burt took an active interest in the WCTU work at the state fair grounds at Syracuse, which overtaxed her health and physical strength.