Rhetorical Analysis Of Florence Kelley's Speech On Child Labor

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On July 22nd, 1905, Florence Kelley, a United States social worker and reformer who fought successfully for child labor laws and improved conditions for working women, delivered a speech on child labor before the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia. The purpose of her speech was to convince her audience that the only way to stop child labor was by allowing women the right to vote. Florence Kelley uses certain rhetorical strategies, such as pathos, diction, and an extensive use of figurative language, to appeal to her audience and accomplish her goal. Kelley’s speech is composed of a substantial amount of emotional appeals to aid her in connecting with her intended audience. In paragraph four she says, “Tonight while we sleep, 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, silks and ribbons for us to buy.” With this passage, Kelley wants her audience to realize that while they sleep, children are making the products they go out and buy during the day. It would be, in a sense, less harsh of a circumstance if it were adults doing these tasks at night, but the mere fact that children of such young age are being forced to work during hours they should be sleeping is outrageous. She wants her audiences’ hearts to break and for them to feel like monsters for not doing anything about these laws and letting