Mrs. Hunt had avoided accusations that she profited from her volunteer work by signing over to the Scientific Temperance Association the royalties from the temperance textbooks she wrote and edited for the WCTU.
That association, which consisted of Mary Hunt, her pastor, and a few of her friends, used its income to maintain the national headquarters of the Department of Scientific Instruction.
Upon her death, this arrangement clouded ownership of her estate, which led to the creation of the Scientific Temperance Foundation.
Mrs. Hunt's personal secretary, Cora Stoddard, headed the new organization.
Because of the substantial fortune she had amassed in promoting compulsory temperance education, and the tens of millions of textbooks this required, the Scientific Temperance Federation was able to engage in a wide variety of activities to promote the temperance movement and prohibition.