Florence Kelley Speech Rhetorical Analysis

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

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

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

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.

Kelley says, "Last year New Jersey took a long backward step. A good law was repealed which had required women and [children] to stop work at six in the evening and at noon on Friday. Now, therefore, in New Jersey, boys and girls, after their 14th birthday, enjoy the pitiful privilege of working all night long.” Kelley’s interesting use of the phrase “pitiful privilege” refers to the child labor laws set by states. These children are allowed to work, to carry the burden of an adult on their shoulders when they reach a certain age. The word “pitiful” is feeling sorry for someone, while “privilege” refers to a granted right. Put together, these two words create a different meaning, an oxymoron. The “pitiful privilege” of these children being allowed to work, but having to work for so long is very problematic. Her effective use of this oxymoron, is criticizing the states, as these rights they give to the children is only hurting them, when it should be helping. Kelley heavily refers to states laws to show that they are responsible for the child labor problems, because they allow the children to work in the first

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

Throughout her speech, Florence Kelly uses her diction to create imagery and convey her point. An example of this in Kelly’s speech is lines 18-22 where she says “ Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all night through, in the deafening noise of the spindles and the looms spinning and weaving cotton and wool, silks and ribbons for us to buy.”(Kelly, 10). With attention to the word choice, Florence Kelly creates an image of a small girl working long into the night, making goods for people to buy, while the adults are at home sleeping in their beds. In this excerpt, she uses the three main phrases, while we sleep, little girls and deafening noise to help the reader picture what is happening with

Janie and her grandmother represent a culture of women that were stereotyped into a specific gender role, putting them as the last class in society. They received no compensation or respect for their services. Their work specifically benefited only those they worked for, and supported. Through compromising themselves in this way these women were subjected to even more maltreatment.

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…

There are many ways that Florence Kelley uses rhetorical devices to convey her message about child labor to her audience. One way that she does this is through appealing to the audience’s emotion. Kelly states that”... while we sleep little white girls will be working tonight in the mills those states, working eleven hours at night”(Kelly). This appeals to emotion because the thought of a little girl working in a dangerous mill, while others are sleep is sad and depressing. Another reason that this is part of the text appeals to emotion during this time frame she gave the speech is because the thought of a little “white girl” working in the Mills was more important and more appealing than a little black girl

Near the end of her speech, Kelley uses powerful diction phrases such as “little beasts of burden” and “robbed of school life”. She uses these descriptive phrases to emphasize that children should be in school learning and not working and that children are being robbed of their childhood. In line 44, Kelley mentions that children “enjoy the pitiful privilege of working all night long.”. She says this line to show the irony by using the negative word ‘pitiful’ and positive word ‘privilege’. This alludes that children do not enjoy working and should not be working all night. Using irony helps Kelley persuade her audience of mothers to take action to help the children. Kelley also adds in line 50 and 51 that adults eat

In 1870, only 13% of women worked outside of their homes. By 1900, over 20% were working outside their homes, most being young and single. The main jobs for them still were, cooking, cleaning and childcare. Although they did start to work in factories. The main types of factories they worked in were garment and textiles. The worked the same long days and tough jobs but were only being paid half of what the men were receiving. The employers reasoning for this was that the women didn’t need to support a family like men do. These employers could do this because women simply didn’t possess enough power to change it.