A Rhetorical Analysis Of Florence Kelley's Speech

n Florence Kelley’s speech, she discusses the current child labor crisis to emphasize the importance of passing child labor laws immediately. Kelley uses emotional imagery, passionate tone, and to inform the audience about children being over worked in the United States. Kelley begins her speech by appealing to emotion (pathos) by using imagery. Kelley acknowledges the current tragedy of children being overworked on a daily basis. She captures the audience's attention by giving dead cold facts. She states, “They vary in age from six and seven (in the cotton mills of georgia) and eight, nine, and ten years old (in the coal-breakers of Pennsylvania), to fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen years in no more enlightenment states.”. She describes what the children would be doing while the audience will be
She proves this by stating, “We do not wish this. We prefer to have our work done by men and women. But we are almost powerless. Not wholly powerless, however, are citizens who enjoy the right of petition.”. To persuade the audience to start taking action to help the children. Kelley uses the phrases “ we do not” , “we prefer , and “we are” to remind America that the people are in control of “the land of the free”; and if we want change for the better of our children, than we will. However, by reminding America that we are in control, Kelley also gives guilt to the people for allowing their children to work themselves nearly to death. Kelley tries to persuade the audience to take a stand by stating, “For the sake of our 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...”. Kelley tries to proves to the audience that if they don’t do something now to help the children, than nobody else will and the children will continue to work themselves nearly to