Formulaic Essay Florence Kelly expresses her disgust towards Americas hideous and abusive treatment of children by appealing to the readers emotions, causing one to contemplate on what is right and what is reality. Reality being, an unethical society that abuses children and refuses to change despite the undisputable cruelty. Throughout the speech, Florence Kelly tugs on the reader's emotional strings. In the first paragraph Kelly states “children under the age of 16....are earning their bread”. Not only is she implying that these children are earning money but rather using a metaphor to allude to the fact that these children must work to survive. Kelly expresses the appalling treatment of these children throughout the essay by continuing to inform the reader that while we sleep, children will be working. …show more content…
She sarcastically claims throughout her essay that some states do better than others in the area of child labor. However the reader knows that Kelly believes all forms of child labor are evil and must be undone. Although she calls them more enlightened states, she considers all of them to be foolish. As the speech continues, Kelly asks the audience rhetorical questions dealing with women's rights to vote as she asks “If the mothers and the teachers in Georgia could vote, would the Georgia Legislature have refused...to stop the work in the mills of children under twelve years of age”. and “Would the New Jersey Legislature have passed that shameful repeal bill enabling girls of fourteen years to work all night“ These questions cause the reader to imagine what could be, rather than what is. The most important question that is asked of the reader is “what can we do to free our consciences”. Not only does this question appeal to the readers emotions, it also motivates the reader to think of what can be done to help these children out of their unfortunate
Within the body of her speech, Kelley starts off each of three paragraphs with, “in Alabama,” “in Georgia,” or “in Pennsylvania.” Following each state, she describes the varying, but untimely horrifying labor laws in each state. The use of the strategy allows Kelley to compare the states and prove to her audience the wide extent of the issue. By showing how awful the labor laws are in each state, the audience realizes that something must be done in order to stop the occurrence. Kelley also uses repetition of the phrase “while we sleep” in three different paragraphs. This phrase is paired with the horrifying conditions the children will face during the night. The purpose of the strategy is to guilt the audience in that while they are enjoying sleep, little girls are being labored long hours through the night making goods the audience will likely
Beginning her speech, Kelley applies her credibility by placing statistics regarding the controversy of child labor laws, revealing that she is informed about this topic. Her credibility has a great connection to her purpose, she claims that the number of working girls doubled from census to census and girls from twelve to twenty years are working when they should not have to. Kelley then manifests her concern over these working girls by explaining that, “tonight,” while everybody else is snoozing away in bed, “these several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills,”(16-17). These words make her audience feel pity concerning those young girls and are a great reason to act against the unfair laws and regulations that violate both their human and women's rights, especially when they aren’t even getting paid fairly. By appealing to their emotion Florence Kelley wishes to push the women to act on her proposal of joining together and helping the poor young girls of their nation. Kelley continues to approach and influence the women’s sentiments and- hopefully- their actions by including her scandalized argument that in “Georgia there is no restriction whatever! A girl of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the bobbins, may work eleven hours by day or by night,” (29-31). She decides to include the ‘bobbins’ of sewing machines in factories to illustrate how short and how young they are to be working in dangerous factories where their rights are ignored, girls at that age should worry more about going to school instead of sacrificing themselves to bring money for bread to their homes. One would understand that many families are living through poverty due to the economy being at a very depressing state and they need the most they can do to increase their financial position to survive in their society, then again, girls should be
Often throughout the book she mentions that it is said that "you're paid what you're worth", saying that little pay results in you not being to good of a person. With that label they were looked down on and viewed kind of as untouchables. They had low pay, long hours, no overtime pay, and no benefits which leads to low socio-economic-status a job that no one wants to pursue. She stressed that poverty wasn’t a sustainable condition, it's a state of emergency. Citizens in the lower classes are left to fend for themselves and the ten, eight, or six dollar jobs are all that's there for them. What she would encourage them to do is to demand to be paid what they're worth because in the end they will be better off.
I am writing to you on the behalf of Florence Kelley, a student I have taught since 1890. She hopes to further her education at United States University. Kelley has always been extremely hard-working, empathetic, and compassionate, and strongly believes in the rights of all people, especially women and children. A perfect example of this is when she said, “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” (Wamsley, 1336-1358). In this quote, Kelley was encouraging voters to vote for the abolition or at least limitation of child labor. As one can see, she is very persuasive and deeply cares about her work; she truly wants to free children from suffering due to unnecessary work. This considerate mindset is apparent in her entire work ethic and philosophy.
During 1848-1920, the Women’s Suffrage Movement took place. Throughout this movement, women protested to win their rights. Florence Kelley, an American Social Worker and Reformer, fought for women’s suffrage and child labor law reformation. Along with the Women’s Suffrage Movement, the Second Industrial Revolution was also taking place. As a result, there was high demand for workers. The target laborers were children. Kelley utilizes her speech to convey an important message to America - that it is inhumane to allow children under sixteen years of age to work under such harsh conditions. In order to resolve the issue, Kelley insists that child labor laws be reformed. This exploitation of children is addressed in Kelley’s speech.
The spin and weave our cotton underwear in the cotton mills. They stamp buckles and metal ornaments of all kinds as well as pins and hat pins.”(lines 72-76), In this part of her speech Kelley refers to the kids as “they”, then she states the work they do as well.Her purpose doing this is to strongly point how the kids are the ones who are doing most of the work in these factories. She also stated “They carry bundles of garment from the factories to the tenements, little beast of burden, robbed of school life that they may for us.”(lines 80-83), once again she is referring the kids as “they”and talks about how they work so much to produce these goods.With this she tells the audience how kids are the ones who how are the ones suffering the most ,and that is beacuse women do not have the right to vote.In the end this shows how Kelley uses repertion in her speech to point out how the kids are the one suffering in the factoires since women are not given the right to
The speaker begins her speech by introducing the topic of child labor by stating powerful facts that support her case and using poignant diction to create sympathy; these devices work together to bring attention to the problem of children being overworked from very young ages, and to get people to initially agree with her opinion and see her as a credible source on the matter. Kelley refers to a census regarding the different groups of people making up the “wage earning class” and saying that “no contingent so doubles from census period to census period…as does the contingent of girls between twelve and twenty years of age.” The rate of young girls working, earning a living, increases faster than any other group of people. The reference to
One device that stands out through this entire essay/article is repetition. Kelly repeats “While we sleep” about 2-3 times which envokes that while we relax and sleep children are in textile mills working to make ribbons and bows for our hats. Also, repeats “we” and “us” to state that it is a first hand problems on our country. These phrases that are repeated constantly envoke our emotions to come out because children are in mills working while we lay in bed with no one in what’s happening around us.
Even though the children worked for a lot longer than adults or their parents they only get paid 10% of what they do. In, The Story of the Cotton Dress, it says, “(...) She sews on 36 buttons to earn 4 cents." The kids are working extremely hard to earn this money for their family, but for sewing on 108
This chapter infers another cathartic intervention, but I see a lot of abuse of power, sexism, and scaring a child into behaving “appropriately” as he found a space among the generations. I also see countertransference going on and I
It showed how with determined woman were able to make a difference in society. Kelley’s use of diction and thought provoking questions expressed the conditions under which children worked under the child labor laws. By showing the National Woman Suffrage Association how poorly she felt the children were being treated, it convinced them to enlist the workingmen voters in their task so that they could cast “their own”
Florence Kelly, the author of the speech appeals to logic and emotion, along with the use of rhetorical devices to evoke the tragic reality of child labor and what is means. Kelly starts off by giving examples of dangerous places where children had to to work. Places such as coal mines, cotton mills, and textile mills. These places have been proven unsuitable for even adults to work in, let alone children. Kelly also states that young girls in the workforce, from age fourteen to twenty, have received rapidly increasing wages, meaning more people want them to work. In fact the girls were earning the highest income at the time and made enough money to bring food to their homes and were described as “bread winners.”
For many of the poor, the working conditions and the corresponding pay were less than ideal. Mayhew revealed that before prostituting, the girl started working, at an early age, for a merchant’s family (Mayhew, 210). The merchant’s wife was abusive towards her, hitting the then child excessively and leaving her with bruises all over her body (Mayhew, 210). The child was so mistreated that she saw no other option for survival but escape (Mayhew, 210). Moreover, reminiscing of the time when she was a factory worker, Bouvier, who also started working as a child, recalled having to work for 13 hours rather than the 8 hours that were the law imposed limit for children (Bouvier, 213). Also, her pay was so limited that she had to find another job outside of the factory, as a knitter, to provide food for her family, who still went hungry many times (Bouvier, 213). Keeping the two jobs was a
What I loved about hearing Sarah Kay speak on spoken poetry was her passion. This passion was enhanced by her voice tone and her potent pauses. One of the tips mentioned in the video on effective delivery was to simply pause instead of saying a “filler word” such as um or uh. When Ms. Kay paused during her talk, I had a chance to ponder her words and consider what she had just said instead of pushing on to the next topic. Similarly, how her voice tone changed from instructive when she talks about apologizing for doing something wrong to compassionate when she talks about never apologizing for the way your eyes sparkle. When I speak, I would like to work on putting poignant pauses and compelling voice tones into my words.
Since the release of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, a startling memoir recounting the author’s troubling childhood, it has been challenged by 15 U.S. states and removed from countless libraries across the country, landing it an almost permanent spot on the American Library Association’s 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books (ALA). Angelou’s brutally honest depictions of rape and racism are off putting to many parents across America, leading them to want to safeguard their children from what are absolutely important, relevant topics in today’s society. This buffer that adults create is exactly what drives the problem within society- people in positions of power are building walls surrounding youths, keeping the truthful, harsh problems of reality out, only letting the youth read and learn from what has been deemed ‘acceptable’. This view of society is what I call ‘second eye-blind’; because of censorship, children are viewing the world with one eye closed. While these advocates exhort against the dangers of these writings, they are ultimately misconstruing and distorting the messages behind author’s writing, instead of reading and learning from it