Rhetorical Analysis Of Florence Kelley Speech

Florence Kelley was an activist who fought against child labor in the late 1800'-early 1900's. She fought very hard for child labor and for better working conditions for our women. On the day of July 22, 1905 Kelley gave her speech regarding her reasoning of why child labor should end. To get a better understanding of her speech Florence Kelley implies pathos, ethos, and logos,which will catch the audience attention.

The women’s rights movement focused on gender equality. Liberal and conservative women disagreed on many issues that the second wave of feminism, the basis of the women’s rights movement, brought to light. Two documents reveal the differences in the opinions of the opposing sides during the women’s rights movement. In an “Interview with Phyllis Schlafly” by the Washington Star, published on January 18, 1976, Ms. Schlafly opposed both the ERA and the Women’s Rights movement. Comparatively, the “Statement of Purpose” by the National Organization for Women, published on October 29, 1966, stated that NOW stood for Women’s Rights and equality. The two documents do agree that a woman’s role of being a mother is most important, but differ in their opinions of women in the workforce.

It is easy to disregard the lives of others, especially of those outside one’s own, but does the fact that, tonight, several thousand children will restlessly work while the adults sleep not raise concern? Florence Kelly was a United States social worker who advocated for child labor laws and the improved working conditions for women throughout the early 1900s. During a speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association Kelly skillfully employed the rhetorical strategies of imagery, pathos, and anecdote in order to sufficiently inform her listeners of the horrendous working conditions that many children were forced to endure.

Eleanor Roosevelt, with her informal speech, the Adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights (1948), explains her opinion on the importance of the declaration and how we need to treat freedom has a right not a privilege. Eleanor supports her speech by using euphemism, apostrophe, and anadiplosis. Eleanor's purpose for the speech is to address the United Nations about human rights and its importance in the world. She formally addresses this speech to the United Nations, World War II victims, and all victims in the world.

Children from as young as the age of 6 began working in factories, the beginning of their exploitation, to meet demands of items and financial need for families. In Florence Kelley’s speech before the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia 1905, Kelley addresses the overwhelming problem of child labor in the United States. The imagery, appeal to logic, and the diction Kelley uses in her speech emphasizes the exploitation of children in the child labor crisis in twentieth century America.

In America’s history, child labor was fiercely criticized. Many activists of child labor laws and women’s suffrage strived to introduce their own viewpoints to the country. Florence Kelley was a reformer who successfully changed the mindset of many Americans through her powerful and persuading arguments. Florence Kelley’s carefully crafted rhetoric strategies such as pathos, repetition, and sarcasm generates an effective and thought provoking tone that was in favor of women’s suffrage and child labor laws.

Women's right activist, Carrie Catt, in her speech, “Address to Congress on Women’s Suffrage”, explains how woman suffrage in inevitable. Catt’s purpose is to convince Congress that it is time for woman suffrage. She adopts a confident tone , uses direct quotations, and appeals to logos in order to convince Congress that it is time for woman suffrage.

For a very long time, the voting rights of the citizens have been a problem in the US. It started out with only men with land being able to vote, and then expanded to white men, and then to all men. However, women were never in the situation, they were disregarded and believed to not be worthy enough to have the same rights as men. They were essentially being treated as property, therefore having no rights. But, in Susan B. Anthony’s speech, she hits upon the point that women are just as righteous as men. Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women 's rights activist, and in 1872 was arrested because she tried to vote and express her opinion in the presidential election. However, her decision was reasonable and she should not

In her speech, written to persuade her audience to help put an end to child labor, Florence Kelley employs many rhetorical devices. America in 1905, we learned, was riddled with inadequate labor laws, as well as working conditions. In order to convey her message, that these unethical statues need to be amended, Kelley uses rhetorical strategies such as pathos, parallelism, and illustration.

The Great Depression began with the famous stock market crash known as “Black Tuesday” and later went on to rapidly develop into one of the most dramatic economic declines in the history of Westernized society. Two of the main causes of the Great Depression were the abuse of the stock market and the general distrust of banks instilled within the American public, which led to the decline of the American economy. President Herbert Hoover, elected in 1928, was a firm believer of rugged individualism and that the economy has natural cycles, which prompted him to employ a “wait and see” approach with the American people when the Depression hit. Soon after, President FDR won the 1932 election by a landslide and enacted a collection of programs

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.

Child Labor was one of Florence Kelley’s main topics at a speech she gave in Philadelphia during a convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Kelley talks about all the horrors children were going through and the injustices they were suffering. She talks of the conditions children working in, the hours they were going in, and all in all, how wrong child labor was. Her purpose for this was to gain support of people to petition for the end of child labor. Kelley’s appeals to Ethos, Pathos and Logos through the use of great rhetoric is what allows her to achieve her purpose. The main devices being extraordinary diction, repetition, and sarcasm/irony.

In her speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Florence Kelly descriptively vocalizes about chid labor. She talks about the horrible conditions young children face in the states.

Florence Kelley uses repetition,statistics and rhetorical questions to develop her claim that the people of that time need to vote against child labor laws.

She was able to craft a strong presentation in the case for women's rights through the “Declaration of Independence”, articles of the Revolution, and the “Woman's Bible” (“Elizabeth Cady Stanton” - Biography Online). Stanton was a strong advocate for universal coeducation for boys and girls and believed that children would learn to respect each other while breaking the traditional roles of society (“Elizabeth Cady Stanton” - Biography Online). She encouraged women to challenge the purpose of women and the concept of “traditional women” (“Elizabeth Cady Stanton” - DISCovering Biography). While Stanton believed that voting was a crucial process of elevating a women’s role in society, she also fought for women’s rights beyond the right to vote. She supported liberalized divorce laws, reproductive self-determination, and increased legal rights for women (“Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Suffragette”). Her passion for women’s rights led to a division between her and more conservative suffragists, and wasn’t recognized as prominent figure of securing voting rights for all citizens. Nevertheless, Stanton fought to end barriers that denied American citizens the right to voice their opinions purely on the basis of their gender, and historians today consider her as the “Philosophical mother of American feminism” (“Elizabeth Cady Stanton” - DISCovering