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Rhetorical Analysis Of Florence Kelley's Speech

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In the twenty-first century, there seems to be less news regarding child labor and women’s suffrage in developed countries. However, long ago, in the 1900s, the United States was suffering from such an issue too. In 1905, Florence Kelley gave a speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, about the relationship between child labor and women’s suffrage. She spoke in an urgent tone to government officials and the general public through descriptive language and punctuation to evoke emotions, continuous rhetorical questions to reinforce her purpose, repetition to juxtapose a child labor’s life to those of adults about her purpose of abolishing child labor as well as giving women their suffrage. Kelley begins her speech by introducing the working conditions of child laborers through descriptive language. Kelley’s use of the word “deafening” to describe the sounds of the machines in the factory creates a negative connotation. By appealing to the general public's natural empathy as parents, Kelley highlights the fact that no parent would want their child to be subjected to such loud and harmful working conditions, especially when they are working overnight. Furthermore, Kelley uses an exclamation mark when she mentions that …show more content…

By repeating the word “they”, she is making sure that her audience understands that children are a different group of people who are working hard to produce the various items that adults buy.. Kelley is making her audience feel ashamed for letting children work for them instead of having fun with their friends and receiving education. With this clear distinction, Kelley is essentially calling for her audience to take action regarding the issue of both child labor and women’s suffrage. She argues that because of women's lack of voting rights, children are working for them and sacrificing their childhood, thus, she urges her audience to address both issues

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