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What Is The Impact Of Florence Kelley Speech On Child Labor

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During the Industrial Revolution, countless laws were passed that enabled children as young as fourteen to work in mills and factories. As there was no regulation on how long a child’s shift could be, children would often work at least eleven hours a day. This lack of humane regulation and fundamental empathy negatively impacted the lives of kids all over America; they were forced to abandon school and also got exposed to several life-threatening diseases. American activist and social worker Florence Kelley, in her speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, addresses the faults of America’s child labor laws by using rhetorical questions, polysyndeton, and oxymorons. First, Kelley’s effective use of rhetorical questions
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87 Words | 1 Pages

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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478 Words | 2 Pages

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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517 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout this speech, Florence Kelley addresses The Philadelphia Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1905, to bring attention to the working conditions of young children across the nation. Kelley’s rhetorical strategies are, listing examples of the appalling working conditions in a repetitive manner and appealing to ethos and pathos to persuade her audience. Kelley creates a compelling argument that captures the audience and throws them into the issue and then persuading them to join her battle. Kelley forms strong personal and emotional statements that strikes the hearts of the audience. She captures the hearts of the mothers and fathers in the audience and then encourages them to empathize with victims.

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939 Words | 4 Pages

About one hundred thousand workers from six hundred different mills were on strike there. The strikers wanted their work cut from sixty to fifty-five hours. About a sixth of the strikers were children under sixteen.” ( 5, Josephson). As a result, she gathered a large group of mill children and their parents, shaming the mill owners of their actions.

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381 Words | 2 Pages

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

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901 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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The speaker of the speech is Florence Kelley. She was a political and social reformer that fought heavily for the fairness of children’s rights in America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The occasion for writing this piece was the amount of children working in factories during the period to support their families. The intended audience of the speech were America’s leaders since she wanted to give children regulations work hours. The purpose of writing this speech is to get her message across which is that children should have to be work in the factories, that is for older men and women.

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744 Words | 3 Pages

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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820 Words | 4 Pages

In her speech at the National Women's Suffrage Association in 1905, Florence Kelley, a woman and labor rights activist, expresses her concern for the harsh labor conditions imposed upon children. Kelley’s concern has been expressed in many different ways within her speech, using strong emotional appeals to connect with her audience. Kelley adopts a disapproving disapproving tone to admonish the states that have relinquished labor laws used to protect children. In order to emphasize her distress for children working in harsh labor conditions and to call upon her audience to take action to nullify these harsh child labor laws, Kelley employs clear imagery to demonstrate , agonizing diction, and classifying personification.

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842 Words | 4 Pages

At the beginning of the speech, Kelley explains that “two million children under the age of sixteen are earning their [family’s] bread” and serve as a source of income to support households (1-3). Kelley then goes on to disclose that many states have no minimum age requirements for workers which can cause elementary-age children to work in factories and mills at night. Kelley uses the metonymy of bread to refer to money and explains how the child is an important source of income for many families. By elaborating on the ages at which children work, Kelley demonstrates to the audience that anyone can be a victim of the horrors of child labor and attempts to cause the audience to feel empathy toward the children in their situation. Similarly, Kelley employs the oxymoron of “deafening noise” to refer to the poor conditions that children face throughout the night.

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797 Words | 4 Pages

Florence Kelley, a women’s rights and child labor activist, delivered a speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association in July 1905 in which she condemns and details the cruel practices of child labor in the United States. Following the industrial revolution, factories had an increase in job openings and a necessity for small hands to work their machines, and consequently, there was a surge of children in the workforce working the same if not more hours than their adult counterparts. The increase in youth exploitation without restrictions on working time prompted Kelley to speak to the women of NAWSA in an attempt to encourage them to vote against child labor and persuade the workingmen voters to vote against unrestricted child

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649 Words | 3 Pages

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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569 Words | 3 Pages

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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855 Words | 4 Pages

Child labor was a great concern in the Industrial revolution but very few people did something to stop it. Women and Children were forced to work more than 10 hours a day with only forty minutes to have lunch. Elizabeth Bentley once said that they didn’t have any time to have breakfast or drink anything during the day. They worked standing up and if they didn’t do their work on time they were strapped (whipped). Children were treating like they were not important, like they didn’t deserve a better life.

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