Analyzing Florence Kelley's Speech

She asks a number of questions throughout the speech, specifically Kelley asks “If the mothers and 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 under twelve years of age?”(lines 55-58) Kelley asks this question to assert the argument of women’s suffrage. Kelly argues that if women had the right to vote there would be better guidelines for child labor laws. Kelley also asks “ Would the New Jersey Legislature have passed that shameful repeal bill enabling girls of fourteen years to work all night, if the mothers in New Jersey were enfranchised?”(lines 59-62) Kelley takes this opportunity to emphasize the importance of women fighting for their rights to vote. This rhetorical question acts as a call for women to fight even harder for their rights, because now Kelley introduces the idea that they are fighting for their rights in order to save their kids. Ultimately Kelley uses the child labor argument as a segue to her women’s rights argument, she argues that if women could vote there would be better child

In her speech, Florence Kelley uses different rhetorical strategies to convey her message about child labor to the audience. Kelley uses repetition, pathos, and logos. She wants to get her message across to the audience that child labor needs to be stopped. First, Kelley uses repetition to emphasize her message about child labor. Throughout the speech she repeats one particular phrase, “while we sleep.” “And while we sleep, little white girls will be working tonight in the mills in those states.” “ And they will do so tonight, while we sleep.” “ Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in the textile mills.” Kelley’s repetition of this makes the audience feel some type of emotion.

Kelley utilized tricolon on line #18, 29 and 35. She put an emphasis on “while we sleep” to prove that child labor is inhumane. While little girls work for hours upon hours, “we” sleep knowing a child is “knitting stockings” all night long. Florence repeated the phrase in order for the audience to understand how inhumane child labor has become. Little girls deserve to be taken

Florence Kelley uses many rhetorical devices and strategies to convey her message about child labor and working conditions for women in the early 1900’s. Kelley uses each device effectively to produce a very powerful strategy. This strategy convinces the reader about her view and persuades them to take action. The beginning of the speech starts with a statistic, “two million children under the age of sixteen years are earning their bread.” She presents this statistic as a tool to show the prevalence of this social issue. Likewise, she expands on what age groups are being affected most by child labor laws.

As part of the movement, in 1913, Pankhurst carried her appeal to the United States, where she delivered her famous speech Why Are We Militant. Therein, she expressed her ideas about women 's suffrage. She gave a talk to encourage American men and women to give political rights to women. In her speech, she states that both men and women are created equal and hence due to this equality women should have political rights too. Throughout her speech she emphasizes the discrimination against women, using the right to vote, the roles in marriage, and unequal wages as her evidence.

Alice Paul graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in biology in 1905. In 1907 Paul received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania then Alice Paul moved to England in (NWHM) and was enlisted by Emeline and Christobel Pankhurst to join the suffrage movement where she met Lucy Burns. (History) Together they participated in many extreme protests such as hunger strikes. These protests showed the public how dedicated they were to this movement causing them to be more noticeable to the public. Inspired by the Pankhurst’s in 1912 Alice Paul returned to the United States of America, where she received her Ph.D. in

The question touches on the subject of women’s rights to vote. In asking this question, Kelley makes her audience consider whether child labor would still be acceptable if women had the right to vote. She is trying to show her audience that if women were allowed to vote, they would not want their children working ¨under twelve years of age,¨ and would try and ¨stop the work¨ of children all together . In asking this question, Kelley connects herself with her audience and makes them consider the effect on the lack of women’s rights, and how the lack of rights is hurting children. Using a rhetorical question helps Kelley briefly reveal the need for an increase in women’s rights, while helping her argument on child labor.

Thousands of women have screamed at the top of their lungs, clawed at the patriarchy, and tirelessly fought for their rights as citizens of the United States of America. From the beginning of mankind, women have been labeled as inferior to men not only physically, but mentally and intellectually as well. Only in 1920 did women gain the right to voice their opinions in government elections with a vote, while wealthy white men received the expected right since the creation of the United States. A pioneer in women’s suffrage, Susan B. Anthony publicly spoke out against this hypocrisy in a time when women were only seen as child bearers and household keepers. Using the United State’s very own Constitution and Declaration as ammunition, Anthony wrote countless speeches and called for the right to vote in a country that boasted equality and freedom for all, yet women were not included.

“A girl of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the bobbins…” showing a visual of how young the girl must be and how over worked she is. Kelley as brings up the “…deafening noise” (Kelley para 3), of the spindles that the children are working on throughout the night just for “ribbons for us to buy” (Kelley para 3), bringing up the struggle of how common things are made and how the children suffer. Kelley sets up examples from all around the country as a way to rouse ethos in people as well. A way of saying “It’s not just a problem here, it’s a problem all over our nation” inadvertently sparking a sense of “we can do better” in the audience as

The audience now have some insight of her alarming topic. Kelley next informs the crowd that tonight as they sleep, “several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills.” By including the audience in her statement ‒ the word “we”‒ she sheds light how this problem involves everyone. This realization makes the audience feel a sense of remorse and guilt. Kelley then turns to comparing the laws regarding child labor in selected states ‒ all which reveal one can find some form of child labor almost anywhere. She begins with the “better” state, Alabama.

She embraced strong efforts to fight government corruption and actively companies for civil rights, children health, welfare, and prohibition. Kelley was responsible for providing the numerical evidence that led to state legislation mandating an eight hours work day for women in children. She did return back to school and earned her a law degree 1894. Kelly returned to New York to assume leadership of the national consumers’ league, an organization created to use the purchasing power of the consumer to support firms with good labor practices. During the time with the consumer league, she was responsible for organizing sixty different leagues in various states.

Document B was from a Pennsylvania newspaper, and it called for the Americans to fight harder to expel the British from the Americas. The author wanted to politically separate America from Britain and pleaded for the American people to make this political change. After the war officially ended with signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, people started to realize that there were issues with the Articles of Confederation. In the next few years many people argued how to fix these issues and how the country should grow. Document G illustrated some of these problems.

The 1840s was the beginning of many reforms towards society. The Second Great Awakening created various religions based on the belief on how a person should live their lives. This lead to the Antebellum Era, the beginning of the revival in America. According to Newman and Schmalbach in their textbook, Unites States History Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination: women began the anti-slavery reforms during the Antebellum Era. Women wanted equality between sexes because the fourteenth amendment gave all white males the right to vote.Stanton held the women 's convention in 1848, to discuss the violation of equality toward woman in anti-slavery political debates.