Florence Kelley Ap Language Essay

Rhetorical Devices and Strategies Impact on Child Labor

Speeches are an effective way to communicate big ideas and changes to a select audience. The human to human connection that speeches provide is vital to the speaker's ability to get a point across. But speeches can also be dull, and empty. They require the use of rhetorical devices to catch the audience’s attention and create meaning. In 1905, prominent social reformer Florence Kelley delivered a speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association regarding the use of child labor in the nation. In her speech, Kelley used a variety of rhetorical strategies, particularly pathos, to engage her audience and convey her message.

At the very start of her speech Kelley established what

For example, Kelley claims, “Several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through, in the deafening noise of the spindles and the looms spinning and weaving cotton and wool…” (18-21). In this instance, Kelley exercises the use of an asyndeton. She adds on more and more sounds to the image of the girls working in the mills to create an entire scene that immerses the audience and gives them a feeling of what it is like to be one of the girls. Shortly after this, in reference to the length of day a child is permitted to work, Kelley laments, “A girl of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the bobbins, may work eleven hours by day or by night” (32-34). In addition to the imagery of the young girl being just tall enough, Kelley juxtaposes day and night to let the audience know that there is no limit to how long they were allowed to work. To further enforce this idea, Kelley says that children could “enjoy the pitiful privilege of working all night long” (44-45). Through simple rhetorical devices, juxtaposition, imagery, and an oxymoron, Kelley is able to involve the audience and further emotionally tie them to the plight that these children

Her sentences become more emphatic and she accentuates the word “we.” Whereas many of her statements up to this point were solely about what the children face, she now offers solutions and hope: “There is one line of action by which we can do much. We can enlist the workingmen on behalf of our enfranchisement just in proportion as we strive with them to free the children” (85-89). This reinforces the idea that Kelley is attempting to merge both movements, but that she would also like some help from men, especially considering that it was the only way for change to happen at the time. It also shows that she wants their efforts to be united and joined together for maximum results. Kelley could not make this point any clearer, with her last proclamation being, “For the sake of the children, for the Republic in which these children will vote after we are dead, and for the sake of our cause, we should enlist the workingmen voters, with us, in this task of freeing the children from toil” (92-96)! Besides the glaring attempt to convince the other women that they require the help of other men to help the children, she also says “with us.” Her exclamation shows that she knows that to end child labor it will take support from all groups of people, men and women alike, given that women themselves are provided the opportunity to vote. Her borderline anger shows the raw passion she has for the subject and how