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A Rhetorical Analysis Of Florence Kelley's Speech

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During the 1900’s, it was common for children to be found working long hours in harsh conditions at factories and textile mills. Also, women were in the midst of fighting for their right to vote. However, the advocation of women’s suffrage would not only benefit women but also children as women would be able to ratify better child labor laws. As a reformer and social worker, Kelly was a strong advocate for women earning the right to vote, so they can better protect the young girls influenced by society’s poor child labor laws. Florence Kelley gave a speech at the convention of the National American Women Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905 about child labor. In her speech, Florence Kelley utilizes unifying language, contrasting …show more content…

Kelley uses strong centralizing diction, such as “We have, in this country, two million children under the age of sixteen who are earning their bread” (1-3), to make her listeners aware of what’s going on in their own country regarding children. Since the people at this convention are women suffrage supporters, they might not be aware of the extent of child labor present. By using words such as “we” and “in this country”, it solidifies that the convention attendees can be a part of the solution due to them being part of the United States. As a result, the people listening to her speech are being persuaded first to fight for women's suffrage in order to help these children who don’t have a voice. The unification encourages the audience to look for a solution for children working in harsh conditions because they have the ability to make a …show more content…

In paragraph 5, Kelley states the child labor laws of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina and the environment the laws put in place for young children (23-28). Out of those states, Alabama was one of the better states due to having a law for the number of hours a child can work at night, whereas Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina don’t have any laws. Kelley uses the lack of child labor laws to back up her argument that laws need to be reformed. Since the convention of National Woman Suffrage Association was held in the north (Philadelphia), the people present are most likely unaware of what’s happening in the South and how the child labor is there. However, using other states in the U.S. as examples helps inform her supporters because they are being made aware of child labor and its laws across the country. As a result, the awareness of the different laws present within the country could trigger sympathy for child laborers in those states. Therefore, it would encourage women to fight for suffrage to help improve child labor laws. Florence Kelley concludes if women gain the right to vote, they also can better protect these young girls and create stronger child labor laws. Through the use of unifying diction, juxtaposition, and exemplification she was able to inform the

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Throughout the speech she repeats one particular phrase, “while we sleep.” “And while we sleep, little white girls will be working tonight in the mills in those states.” “ And they will do so tonight, while we sleep.” “ Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in the textile mills.” Kelley’s repetition of this makes the audience feel some type of emotion.

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Kelley then brings the opinion of the mothers and teachers into her argument. She uses the quote “Would the New Jersey Legislature have passed that shameful repeal bill enabling girls of fourteen years to work all night, if the mothers in New Jersey were enfranchised?” (lines 59-62). Using the word shameful does not give good connotation to Kelley’s point and gives it a negative tone. She claims that New Jersey was “enabling girls” to work all night; this means that New Jersey is giving fourteen year old girls the authority to do something, while if their mothers were enfranchised or given the right to vote, they may not be in this position.

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This impact only furthers her audience's drive to act or boycott the textile industry they contribute to. Kelley, through utilizing statistics, connects and unites her cause with the concerns of her audience. Her audience’s primary concern, being a suffrage convention, is equality between men and women, so by pointing out a disproportionate amount of girls working compared to men, it manages to connect the issue of child labor to suffrage. “No other portion of the wage earning class increased so rapidly from decade to decade as young girls from fourteen to twenty years” no contingent so doubles from census period to census period (both by percent and by count of heads), as does the contingent of girls between twelve and twenty years of age”. Kelley, through this evidence, targets her audience’s primary concern.

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The audience is angry and Florence uses the anger to her advantage as she says " If the mothers and the teachers in Georgia could vote, would the Georgia Legislature have refused at every session for the last three years to stop the work in the mills of children under twelve years of age" (Kelley paragraph 8). Once again she uses logic to highlight that Child Labor could have been restricted, but in this text she is moreso empowering the women. Even though she says this before evoking anger, the anger is already there and therefore the audience thinks back to her claim here. Florence Kelley is specific about the structure of her speech and knows when she has established

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