Florence Kelley was a women’s rights activist who gave a speech before the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in the summer of 1905 on the topic of child labor. This speech on child labor offers insight to the harsher lives that some children have to carry in comparison to some adults due to no child labor laws. Kelley’s writing was meant to persuade the audience to improve child labor laws and safety by appealing to pathos. Throughout the beginning of the essay, there’s repetition of the phrase: “[W]hile we sleep.” Kelley uses the word “we” instead of “you” or “I” because there’s strength in numbers. The audience and Kelley could continue to not do anything or they could all “wake up” and take action to put child labor laws in place. Only one person can not make a change that big, but a group of people with an understanding of the issue could make a change. The audience will also feel the need to do something due to guilt. The guilt that Kelley places on them with her choice of words in that phrase. Instead of using the phrase “While we work” or anything else, she uses that phrase because it leaves a lasting effect on …show more content…
The children make our shoes in shoe factories; they knit our stockings, out knitted underwear in the knitting factories. They spin and weave our cotton underwear in the cotton mills.” The members can say they do not support child labor, but Kelley practically retaliates by inferring that someone can say that and continue to support it by buying goods that were made by children instead of saving them from such unsafe working conditions that are not suitable for children. Those who do nothing are just as bad as the