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Rhetorical Analysis On Florence Kelley

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Analysis on: Florence Kelley on Child Labor
Florence Kelly was a social worker who was passionate about restricting child labor laws, her work inspired her to fight for children. In 1905 Florence Kelly spoke to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, an audience that expected her to speak about women's suffrage. Surprisingly, Florence Kelley spoke to her audience about Child Labor laws, a strategy which captured their attention and evoked confusion and anger. As she continues into her speech the Women's Suffrage Association realizes that her message of Child Labor laws also reveals reasons for women's right to vote. Despite her semi-relevant topic, Florence Kelly is purposeful in the structure of her speech as she begins with confusion, …show more content…

The women have a distinct emotion of being confused, but Florence Kelley isn’t going to evoke more emotion yet, instead she will proceed to manipulate their confusion with logic to highlight her claim. Florence Kelley transitions into an illuminating position in her third paragraph, 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”(Kelley paragraph 3). While she illuminates the problem, she also draws in the audience with her diction. The use of “We” ties in the introduction and shows how while they are fast asleep children are put in danger to provide their basic wants. Everyone is the problem including the women because their inability to vote doesn’t affect their duty to stop injustice. Kelley speaks more on this conviction within the next section and her explanation/illumination transition into …show more content…

Kelley makes choices to provoke anger within the Women's Suffrage Association as they grasp the seriousness of Child labor. She convicts the audience saying, " Until the mothers in the great industrial states are enfranchised, we shall none of us be able to free our consciences from participation in this great evil" (Kelley paragraph 9). Once again Kelley refers to the group using "we" which makes them realize it's their shared responsibility to change Child Labor. The word "great evil" creates restlessness within the minds of her audience and soon they become angry. Florence has completed her mission to illuminate the "great evil". 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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In Florence Kelley’s 1905 speech to the convention of National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia, her main overall purpose is to fight for better child labor laws and improved conditions for working women. The two main strategies Kelley uses to convey her message about child labor to her audience is logos and pathos. The text is broken down into two different sections as sections one from line 1 to 54 main rhetorical strategies is logos and from line 55 to 95 main rhetorical strategy is pathos.

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It is easy to disregard the lives of others, especially of those outside one’s own, but does the fact that, tonight, several thousand children will restlessly work while the adults sleep not raise concern? Florence Kelly was a United States social worker who advocated for child labor laws and the improved working conditions for women throughout the early 1900s. During a speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association Kelly skillfully employed the rhetorical strategies of imagery, pathos, and anecdote in order to sufficiently inform her listeners of the horrendous working conditions that many children were forced to endure. Through careful word choice Kelly’s use of imagery manages to evoke a sense of pity among her listeners towards

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As a social worker and reformer, Florence Kelley utilizes asyndeton, juxtaposition, and rhetorical questions in her ardent speech for the attendees of the convention for the National American Women Suffrage Association to “enlist the workingmen voters” in helping with the implementation of more stringent child labor laws to encourage the protection of children, especially girls, from working in factories at such young ages. Kelley’s employment of asyndeton in the second paragraph as she states, “Men increase, women increase, youth increase in the ranks of the breadwinners…”, makes her speech more passionate and effective by speeding up its rhythm and pace. She applies this rhetorical strategy to segue into the fact that despite the increase across different demographics, none is so exponential as the growth of “girls between twelve and twenty years of age.” She describes this fact before the convention to depict the extensive hindrances this particular contingent faces.

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74 Words | 1 Pages

In her speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Florence Kelly descriptively vocalizes about chid labor. She talks about the horrible conditions young children face in the states. Kelly uses repetition to put emphasis on little girls working in textile mills, “while we sleep” is repeated 3 times this makes the audience feel guilty for enjoying life while little girls are working. Kelly also uses pathos, appealing to the emotion of her

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Since women could not vote, many abolitionists appealed only to men under the assumption that there was no other way to create change. However, Grimke disagreed and wanted to encourage all people to act against slavery. She knew many women would be paying attention to the speeches only passively since they don’t expect the instructions given will be useful to them. Because of the mob outside the lecture hall screaming threats and throwing rocks, Grimke abandons more subtle, intellectual ways to regain women’s attention in favor of a simple exclamatory sentence: “Women of Philadelphia! Allow me as a Southern woman, with much attachment to the land of my birth, to entreat you to come up to this work.”

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As a young girl, she was innocent and unaware of all the discrimination in the south. Growing up, Anne has dealt with severe poverty and is often the one bringing income to her family’s home along with her mother. Her employers are a huge factor as to why she is so drawn to the movement. For instance, when Anne learned about Emmitt Till being killed, she ran to her mother for an explanation but her mother had replied “…just do your work like you don’t know nothing… that boy’s a lot better off in heaven than he is here” (262). Her mother brushing off the death of Emmitt Till took the best of her curiosities and she questioned why her mother was acting so afraid although it was obvious that.

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Florence Kelley Rhetoric Children 13 years old are working 12 hours at night during the 1900’s. What did we do to ty and fix this? Florence Kelley was a united states social worker and reformer who tried to abolish child labor laws and tried to improve women's working conditions. She delivered a speech in 1905 to insPire the people of that time to vote against these child labor laws. Florence Kelley uses repetition,statistics and rhetorical questions to develop her claim that the people of that time need to vote against child labor laws.

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Women had to endure many negative attitudes towards them during the Women’s Suffrage Movement. For example, men thought that women should take care of the children. One man who thought this was Senator Leighton. He was always expecting his wife Emily Leighton to watch the children all day, everyday without a break for herself. They thought that the women were their little slaves while they went off to have a great day with their acquaintances.

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She asks a number of questions throughout the speech, specifically Kelley asks “If the mothers and 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?”(lines 55-58) Kelley asks this question to assert the argument of women’s suffrage. Kelly argues that if women had the right to vote there would be better guidelines for child labor laws. Kelley also asks “ 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) Kelley takes this opportunity to emphasize the importance of women fighting for their rights to vote.

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892 Words | 4 Pages

Florence Kelley - Rhetorical Essay Brayden Jones, LaNasia Steward, Jenna McKee, Kyle Hanes Intro Florence Kelley was a women’s rights activist who held a lifelong legacy as a patriot of women’s rights and children’s rights. Although she gave hundreds of speeches during her lifetime, one in particular stands out. On July 22, 1905, Kelley addressed members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association before a convention that the association held in Philadelphia. During her speech, she urged listeners to take part in stopping unrestrained work hours for children.

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1051 Words | 5 Pages

Kelley could not make this point any clearer, with her last proclamation being, “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” (92-96)! Besides the glaring attempt to convince the other women that they require the help of other men to help the children, she also says “with us.” Her exclamation shows that she knows that to end child labor it will take support from all groups of people, men and women alike, given that women themselves are provided the opportunity to vote. Her borderline anger shows the raw passion she has for the subject and how

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842 Words | 4 Pages

United States social worker and reformer Florence Kelley, in her speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905, emphasizes the dire need to reform the working conditions of children across the country. Throughout the speech, Kelley strives to make the audience aware of the terrible hours and conditions that children face, and to compel the listeners at the convention to empathize with the children in their situation. Kelley adopts a compelling, yet passionate tone in order to call the listeners to action to help the child workers, while still demonstrating how much she truly believes in solving the issue. Kelley employs repetition of phrases in order to emphasize the lack of involvement from the

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1013 Words | 5 Pages

Kelley compares contrasting words as she notes, “Now, therefore, in New Jersey, boys and girls, after their 14th birthday, enjoy the pitiful privilege of working all night long” (6). Kelley is able to create a sense of compassion for the children throughout her audience by using contradicting words such as pitiful and privilege to make the men and women at the convention ponder about the morbid reality of young children working in harsh conditions. Kelley uses the word “privilege” as almost ironic contrast to the pitiful situation convincing the suffragists at the convention to take action against intensive working conditions. Hence, Kelley is able to convince the men and women at the convention to advocate for women’s suffrage through putting conflicting words together to sway the audience to support her cause for voting rights for women. Kelley continues to remind the audience that in order to take the burden of a pitiful privilege off of children, they first need to gain voting rights to make their stances

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By choosing to include such a strong sense of pathos, she was able to promote an effective argument that was appropriate for her intended audience; the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The use of pathos, as seen in lines 18-19, “Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through” constructs a sense of guilt, she

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By allowing themselves to not have a say, and just hang back in the shadow creates an issue among society. As the women of GIlead right’s are abruptly taken, they have no way to stand up for themselves and have a voice in the belief that they deserve rights. The women of Gilead become objectified to the point where their only purpose is to procreate and continue until they may not create any longer. They are treated as things, and they are not seen to have emotions or thoughts. They have no basic rights.

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