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Rhetorical Analysis Of Speech By Florence Kelley

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On July 22, 1905, children’s rights activist, Florence Kelley, addressed the issue of child labor in her speech at the National American Suffrage Association in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Throughout the speech, Kelley calls attention to the harsh working conditions and long hours that the working children, especially the young girls, endure in factories and mills. Kelley adopts a passionate tone to emphasize her dedication to the child labor movement and to persuade others to contribute to the movement in order to prevent the oppression that the working children face. Kelley employs repetition to emphasize the long hours that the children work, oxymoron to contrast the opportunities of the children to the conditions of working in mills, and rhetorical questions to point out the actions not being taken by legislatures and voting men. The first rhetorical device Kelley utilizes is the repetition of the phrase “tonight while we sleep” to emphasize the importance of what the rest of society does while the children work (18). Throughout paragraphs three through five, Kelley repeats the phrase three times to draw attention to …show more content…

The children “enjoy the pitiful privilege of working all night long” once they reach the legal working age in their states (44-45). The contrasting connotations of the words “pitiful privilege” demonstrate the idea that the limited opportunity provided to children does not actually benefit them due to the harsh conditions (44-45). The negative consequences outweigh the opportunity to receive money to support themselves and their family. The intended effect is to cause the audience to come to the realization that the opportunity to work is not always a privilege one wants to have, especially if that specific privilege means dealing with unwanted negative

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Kelley introduces the idea that there should be regulations on child labor and New Jersey, at one point, had good labor regulations until this point: “Now, therefore, in New Jersey, boys and girls, after their 14th birthday enjoy the pitiful privilege of working all night long.” (lines 43-45). The phrase “pitiful privilege” is an oxymoron. A privilege is a special right or something that is not available to everyone and this is saying that it is pitiful, or inadequate, which it is. The choice of using the oxymoron shows thought and word choice that keeps the audience thinking.

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Florence Kelley portrays her reasoning of decreasing child labor through the employing of repetition. In the speech Kelley reiterates the phrase "an while we sleep little white girls will be working tonight in the mills... eleven hours a night". The repetition emphasizes the long harsh hours kids have to endure, at such a young age, while adults are sleeping in their nice, warm homes. This creates a sense of pathos because it makes people feel guilty for ignoring the facts of cruel child labor, thinking it is not bringing any harm to them.

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July 22nd, 1905 Florence Kelly delivered a speech about the unfairness of child labor at a National American Women Suffrage Association conference. Throughout this speech Kelly uses rhetorical strategies such as repetition, sarcasm, and an appeal to the audiences emotions to express the issue of child labor in America. Kelley uses repetition in this piece to emphasize the importance of her argument about child labor. In paragraph two, talking about the rapid increase in the amount of fourteen to twenty year old women who are working, she says, “ Men increase, women increase, youth increase, boys increase.”

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In an era of limited rights for women and minorities, social worker Florence Kelley delivers a persuasive speech to a live audience at the Philadelphia convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Through repetition of important details, along with harrowing examples of awful working conditions, the author brings to light the issues of child labor and invites listeners to empathize. She then employs rhetorical questions to deliver a scathing critique of the carelessly permissive labor laws in place. In doing so, she creates a convincing argument that emphasizes the need to change child labor laws in the United States, and beckons the present listener to take action and join her cause.

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In Florence Kelley’s speech, she spoke about child labor. Specifically, she wanted to persuade her audience that children across the nation should be free child labor. To persuade her audience, she imagery and appealed facts and her audience’s emotions by using repetition and rhetorical questions. Throughout her speech, Kelley evoked emotions of sympathy and guilt from her audience.

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To build on her argument further, Kelley brings in specific details about how various states are treating the children. She says, “They vary in age from six and seven years(In the cotton mills of Georgia) and eight, nine and ten (in coal-breakers of Pennsylvania), to fourteen, fifteen and sixteen in more enlightened states.” By bringing in the policies of certain states into her argument, Kelley shows that this issue is not a small matter, but yet is affecting the lives of so many children who are forced into hard labor. Her usage of the cotton mill work and coal breaking in Georgia and Pennsylvania respectively, shows that the workload children have is not light, but very severe. Kelley moves forward in her argument when talking about state policies on child labor.

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Child Labor Analysis Child Labor was one of Florence Kelley’s main topics at a speech she gave in Philadelphia during a convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Kelley talks about all the horrors children were going through and the injustices they were suffering. She talks of the conditions children working in, the hours they were going in, and all in all, how wrong child labor was. Her purpose for this was to gain support of people to petition for the end of child labor. Kelley’s appeals to Ethos, Pathos and Logos through the use of great rhetoric is what allows her to achieve her purpose.

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Near the end of Kelley’s speech, she states, “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!” Kelley’s use of the word “toil” demonstrates the agony children have undergone due to a lack of child labor laws and is supposed to leave a memorable mark on her audience. Additionally, when Kelley discusses the adult’s perspective on the issues of these child labor laws, Kelley states that “we do not wish this. We prefer to have our work done by men and women. But we are almost powerless.”

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In Florence Kelley’s, a former United States social worker and reformer who fought successfully for child labor laws and improved conditions for working women, speech to the National American Association on July 22, 1905. Kelley advocates strongly to her audience of women that they need to come together, gain their right to vote, and free the children from this nightmare of unjust labor pushed on to these children through using rhetorical strategies like repetition and imagery to strongly convey her message and negative outlook of the current standing on child labor laws. From start to finish of her speech Florence Kelley ensures the constant use of repetition to relay her strong message. Kelley uses these words and phrases repeatedly throughout

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In America’s history, child labor was fiercely criticized. Many activists of child labor laws and women’s suffrage strived to introduce their own viewpoints to the country. Florence Kelley was a reformer who successfully changed the mindset of many Americans through her powerful and persuading arguments. Florence Kelley’s carefully crafted rhetoric strategies such as pathos, repetition, and sarcasm generates an effective and thought provoking tone that was in favor of women’s suffrage and child labor laws. Florence Kelley uses pathos continuously throughout her speech.

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