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The importance of rhetorics
Child labor laws of the 1800s
The importance of rhetorics
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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.
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
Work is required to earn the money to provide the necessities of life, but this duty should never be given to children. In her speech, Florence Kelley uses logos, pathos, and a shift to voting rights to build her argument of why child labor laws need to be enforced nationwide. The first way the author builds her argument is through logos, a logical appeal. Kelley utilizes an assailment of facts and statistics to lead her assertion. This is effective because of the shockingly large number of children working absurd and miserable hours.
In her speech, Florence Kelley uses different rhetorical strategies to convey her message about child labor to the audience. Kelley uses repetition, pathos, and logos. She wants to get her message across to the audience that child labor needs to be stopped. First, Kelley uses repetition to emphasize her message about child labor.
In her speech addressing the National American Woman Suffrage Association on the topic of child labor, Florence Kelley bases her argument, through the use of logos, cacophony, and rhetorical questions on the ethical merit against child labor. Establishing her main arguments, and introducing the topic at hand, Kelley provides statistical evidence by which she conveys the pandemic of child labor. By stating that, “We have, in this country, two million children who are earning their bread,” she establishes the idea that child labor is widespread throughout the union and further notes the idea by describing the alarming trend of low wage-earning children growing as a demographic. She also notes it is especially common for girls between the ages
Children from as young as the age of 6 began working in factories, the beginning of their exploitation, to meet demands of items and financial need for families. In Florence Kelley’s speech before the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia 1905, Kelley addresses the overwhelming problem of child labor in the United States. The imagery, appeal to logic, and the diction Kelley uses in her speech emphasizes the exploitation of children in the child labor crisis in twentieth century America. Kelley’s use of imagery assists her audience in visualizing the inhumanity of the practice.
“Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time” (Grace Abbott). The issue of child labor has been around for centuries. Its standing in our world has been irrevocably stained in our history and unfortunately, our present. Many great minds have assessed this horrific issue and its effect on our homes, societies, and ultimately, our world.
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.
As Kelley describes the rapidly increasing wage earning class of young girls, she uses parallel structure and repetition as she says that men, women, youth, and boys all “increase” (115). Asserting that age is not relevant in this work force by grouping men, women, and children all in the same list, Kelley is able to highlight the difference between these categories and make it seem unfair to her audience that they should all be thrown into the same work force. Using an oxymoron to describe how working all night may be beneficial for one person and unfortunate for another, she refers to the child’s work as a “pitiful privilege” (116). The contrasting nature of these two words emphasize the fact that work is inevitably something that must be done and while it is a privilege for men and women to have work to earn money, it is pitiful for children to bear the burden of this responsibility as they are so young. Expanding on this connection between the lives of the children and her audience, Kelley uses a hypothetical example of a child carrying “her pail of midnight luncheon” while an adult could carry “their midday luncheon” (116).
In her speech at the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention in 1905, United States social worker and reformer, Florence Kelley addresses the ills of child labor that that nation has turned a blind eye to. Throughout the speech, Kelley calls attention to the unethical conditions that children are forced to work under and prompts voters to use their power to vote for stricter child labor laws. She adopts a critical tone in order to unify her audience against unethical labor practices, and encourages those who can vote to be a voice for women and children. Kelley employs emotive imagery to highlight the injustices of child labor, repetition of phrases to suggest the nation’s negligence to the reality of child labor, and rhetorical
Kelley uses an example of a little girl affected by the lack of child laws as she describes, “13 years of age” who spent her birthday working “twelve hours at night” (7). The evidence would allow the reader to realize that the effects of no regulations in the child labor system is apparent and needs to be addressed. Kelley is able to persuade women and men at the National American Woman Suffrage convention to take the initiative to take a stand against unreasonable working conditions for adolescent children who don’t have a voice for themselves. With the use of a short emotional anecdote, Kelley is able to strengthen her claim regarding advocating for women’s right to vote in order to achieve stronger child labor laws to ensure little girls on their 13th birthday wouldn’t have to spend 12 hours working. As a result, the anecdote compels the audience at the convention to improve conditions for child labor, as the children have little to no protection in the legislation.
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.
In conclusion, Florence Kelley used many rhetorical strategies in order to call her audience to arms against child labor laws. She accuses the laws of being unjust and labels the children prisoners. In the last two paragraphs, Kelley refers to her cause as the "freeing of the children." She believed the children were robbed of their basic rights and freedoms by labor laws and used strategies such as pathos, parallelism, and illustration to convince her audience to help her "free
First of all, the speaker is Mary Fisher, someone who is HIV positive. Since she is HIV positive, she can speak on the effects of HIV on a very personal and emotional level. She uses her unfortunate circumstances as a platform to spread awareness. “I would have never asked to be HIV positive, but I believe that in all things there is a purpose; and I stand before you and this nation gladly” (Fisher). Fisher also does not fit the stereotype of HIV and AIDS victims.
But not all work done by children should be accepted as child labor. In other words, if a work doesn’t harm child’s health or personal development (educational issues), it is generally accepted as something positive and useful. Such activities develop children’s skills, provide experience and formulate them to be part of society. The term “Child Labor” is when children do work that damages their health or hamper mental or physical