Summary Of Speech By Florence Kelley Ap Language

463 Words2 Pages

In life, there are decisions made by the powerful few, that effect the powerless many. Oftentimes, we find ourselves oppressed by a systematic institution designed to benefit the masses, but they end up oppressing us. Throughout American history, there have been varying degrees of enslavement and indentured servitude which oppressed African-Americans and American youth. From the plantation to the factory, these systems have had magnificent effects on the economy. Through the use of personification in her speech, Florence Kelley develops the idea of fixing today's mistakes by learning from yesterday’s failures. Kelley successfully employs the use of personification to illustrate using yesterday’s failures to mend today’s mistakes. For example, the author uses personification in the fourth paragraph by discussing the unfair treatment of youth working in factories. She supports the …show more content…

The children may work enough to provide for their families, however they have minimal time to be a child. This proves that the government, in personified form, is a giver of the law, who creates laws that can be interpreted as a success at the expense of the children who live this reality. As a result, the government signed a law that “required women and [children] to stop work at six,” which was a significantly improved version of the inhumane work schedules (lines 41-42). The same government that placed sensible limits on the egregious system which oppressed children, made a mistake. The government “took a long backward step” when it repealed the law that brought relief to oppressed children (line 40). Now, the minors, after their