Rhetorical Analysis Of Speech By Florence Kelley

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is a government website that provides information about various diseases, disabilities, disorders, etc.. The CDC provides multiple webpages about Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) that list and provide information about causes, treatments, variations, and signs/symptoms of the disorder. On their informative pages, they use rhetorical devices to better portray their message. The CDC effectively uses the three rhetorical devices, pathos, ethos, and logos, to reach their goal of informing their target audience and providing a clear perspective on Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Effective uses of appeals to logic are made through insightful parallel structure and an oxymoron, both of which demonstrate the unjust truth. Kelley ensures her audience that the growing rate of working children is indeed overpowering the rate of working adults when she states, “Men increase, women increase, youth increase, boys increase in the ranks of the breadwinners; but no contingent so doubles from census period (both by percent and by count of heads), as does the contingent of girls between twelve and twenty years of age.” The parallelism depicts how there was a normal flow of growth for all men, women, and boys, yet the growth rate of

Throughout the beginning of her speech, Kelley makes use of disturbing anecdotes that appeal to women's emotions. She first illustrates that while they “sleep, several thousand little girls” are “working in textile mills” throughout the night. This use of little girls working highlights that children all around the United States are not sleeping but are operating machines: making clothes for the adults to purchase. She incorporates this factor in order to encourage the concerned mothers to help alter labor laws so that their children are not working twelve-hour shifts. Kelley continues to describe how little girls of “six or seven years,” who are “just tall enough to reach” the machines, will be working eleven hours a day. Kelley’s use of the children's height emphasizes how as soon as children reach a certain height, they are being deprived of their childhood and sent to work in the factories. She continues to repeat the phrase that “while [they] sleep” little girls and boys “will be working” in the mills. Kelley’s continual use of this phrase evokes sympathy in the women so they can help change the lives of children by amending the harsh child labor laws.

But, before she brings this up, she first convinces her audience just how excruciatingly terrible child labor is. Kelley focuses on children working long hours through the night, saying, “tonight while we sleep…working all night long.” She then goes on to repeat the phrases, “while we sleep,” and, “all night long,” various times throughout the core of her speech. The emphasis on children working through the night appeals to the audience’s pathos; it includes the listeners in the force enslaving children, making them accountable. While the audience sleeps in the comfort of their homes, young girls spend all night working to make products for them to enjoy. The sorrowful repetition gains the listener’s sympathy for the speaker’s cause. Lastly, Florence Kelley demonstrates ironic diction in her attempt to persuade her spectators to ally with her campaign. The speaker says, “boys and girls…enjoy the pitiful privilege,” to describe young children going off to their jobs instead of to their playdates. The use of the contradictory phrase “pitiful privilege,” reminds the audience that the privilege of having a job, earning a living, becomes a burden when forced on these young

She places a feeling of guilt on her audience, but calls them to action. She said, “Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night … spinning and weaving cotton and wool silks and ribbons for us to buy” (ln 18-22). She faults herself and her audience for sitting idly by while children are working in the middle of the night in harsh conditions. Furthermore, she continues to guilt the audience by stating that all the work these children are doing are for products that the audience will buy. In lines 59-61, Kelley attacks a bill that was removed that protected fourteen year old girls from working all night. This condemns her opposition as shameful. Kelley tries to unite her female audience against the “great evil” (ln 64-65) that is child labor. She believes that the suffrage of women will free children from the cruel nature of their working conditions.

One thing she does to provoke action is using rhetorical questions. She asks “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? Would the New Jersey legislature have passed that shameful repeal bill enabling girl of fourteen years to work at night, if the mothers in New Jersey were enfranchised?” Kelley knows that the women in NAWSA will vote to end child labor if they have a right to vote. This is why she asks this rhetorical question. She wants to let them know that if the women there are allowed to vote that they will fix some of society’s injustices. Kelly additionally uses diction to make the listeners feel even worse about child labor. She says “They carry bundles of garments from the factories to the tenements, little beasts of burden, robbed of school life so that they may work for us.” A “beast of burden” is an animal that does work, like a camel or a donkey. She calls the children “little beasts of burden” because they are doing very hard work for any person but especially someone of that age. Their amount of time that they have to take a break isn’t in their own hands but of that of their master. This diction reveals how in child labor, there is a degradation of human life. Kelley ends her speech using syntax to leave the audience rushing to help fix child labor. She declares “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 uses an exclamatory statement which is a powerful statement for the audience to be left with. It empowers the women to make a change to help fix child labor. The end of Kelley’s speech clearly

Initially Kelley conveys her message about the corrupt child labor laws by criticizing the practices of the states in a way that incites change by using examples and rhetorical devices. She begins by providing specific evidence of child labor statistics to add to her credibility. Explaining that “two million children under the age of sixteen” are working just to survive, alludes to the

Florence Kelley is a social worker and reformer who fights for child labor laws and better working conditions for women. At the National Assembly Women Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905, Kelley recites a speech about the issue of child labor laws. She uses rhetorical strategies such as repetition of the many negative aspects of child labor through specific examples, criticism of state policies, and emotional appeal. A combination of figures, logic, evidence, and emotional appeal will help convince her audience that child labor is a problem.

To this day the women’s suffrage movement ignites women in the present to keep those right burning. Alice Paul and her fellow women suffrages demonstrated through speeches, lobbying and petitioning Congressional Committees, with parades, picketing and demonstrations, and with arrest that lead to imprisonment. These women express courage that women still uphold for years after their legacy has passed on, such as the article “Women’s Strike for Equality,” by Linda Napikoski, in the demonstration that was held on August 26, 1970 on the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage. As well as an article “Women to Protest For Equality Today,” by United Press that talks about on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the women’s suffrage and “declared war on firms that Damage the Image,” of the fair sex. Alice Paul, set the stage for inspiring women to fight for their rights everywhere across the world.

Kelley addresses this idea by stating, “Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through… silks and ribbons for us to buy.” Essentially, the usage of this rhetorical strategy makes the audience more reluctant to listen and agree by appealing to the kids’ situations by adding, “…while we sleep through the night.” Additionally, Kelley introduces additional pathos by stating, “New Jersey, boys and girls, enjoy the pitiful privilege of working all night long.” This oxymoron of a child actually enjoying constant labor “all night long” brings her audience in to feel guilty. Ultimately, her utilization of examples of children working through the night to produce what the audience wears and use in their daily lives draws the audience into her message and helps gain

3. Urban industrialism dislocated women’s lives no less than men’s. Like men, women sought political change and organized to promote issues central to their lives, campaigning for temperance and woman suffrage., Susan B. Anthony, launched the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, demanding the vote for women suffrage, though not yet generally supported, was no longer considered a crackpot idea. Thanks to the WCTU’s support of the “home protection” ballot, suffrage had become accepted as a means to an end even when it was not embraced as a woman’s natural right.

Since capitalism has existed, children have been able to work. These children have worked in the harshest conditions and the longest hours. With thousands of children working in the United States, social worker Florence Kelley decided something needed to be done about it. So on July 22, 1905, she delivered a speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), analyzing, and explaining the problems with children in the workplace. She uses the rhetorical strategy, cause and effect, to exemplify the pros and cons of child labor at the time. Kelley later explains how her thoughts can reflect on the future of child labor in the United States.

Kelley starts off her speech with a bang by constantly repeating herself, which allows the audience to understand how important the points she is trying to get across truly are. For example, on lines 10-12 she states, “Men increase, women increase, youth increase, boy increase…” By using such dramatic repetition, Kelley causes the audience to feel sadness towards the children, since they are being treated like adults at such a young age. Kelley continues her strong usage of repetition throughout the entire story by constantly stating the words “little white girls” should not be doing the type of jobs that adults do. By using more little white girl statements rather than little white boy statements in her speech, Kelley is able to show the problem in child labor, but more importantly the change that is needed for women’s rights. Finally, on lines 92-96 she goes onto say, “For the sake of the children, for the Republic in which these children…

These causes provide insight into how employers are able to exploit impoverished children. In Charities and the Commons, Van Kleeck answers the question of why it is impossible to deal with the issue of child labor. She refers to the cause as the “sweating system,” in which employers are able to successfully profit off of the need for employment in overcrowded cities due to poorly enforced labor regulations. She goes on to mention that, “any effective attempt to improve conditions must therefore be an attack upon the sweating system,” therefore enforcing the difficulty of the issue and revealing a clear conflict of interests between employers and reformers. (2) The employers look at what would be more beneficial for their business rather than what would be best for the children. The complexity of this issue can be further analyzed in the first cartoon which illustrates how children, like innocent flies, become trapped within a web of greed, profit, luxury, poverty, ignorance, and indifference created by child labor. The significance of the words creating the web reveal that as a result of greedy employers gaining profit and luxury, they are able to exploit children living in poverty because they have no choice but to work in order to financially support their

The Women of Hull House described how middle and upper class women chose to share their educational advantages with communities in need. At a community level, they sought to assuage poverty and improve the lives of the less fortunate by providing Kindergarten for children and daycare for working women. These women fundraised to introduce artwork, literature and new ideas to the poor. On a national level, they tackled social issues such as child labor, long working hours, public health issues, women’s suffrage and the creation of trade unions.