Rhetorical Devices In Florence Kelley's Speech

Through careful word choice Kelly’s use of imagery manages to evoke a sense of pity among her listeners towards

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.

In Patrick Henry’s “Speech to the Virginia Convention”, he persuades Loyalists to fight England by using main rhetorical devices: Diction, Allusion, Rhetorical Questions, and Appeal to ethos. Diction creates rhythm and emphasizes important ideas and images. Convincing an audience can be different, but using Allusion alleviates the audience connect to the situation. Rhetorical Questions gets people thinking and helps them see the right in the situation. You have to make yourself credible, so Patrick Henry connects his charming character to his crowd by using Appeal to ethos as well. Many of the people do not realize that their freedom is only temporary if they do not fight England. Patrick Henry desires

Florence Kelley was a women’s rights activist who gave a speech before the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in the summer of 1905 on the topic of child labor. This speech on child labor offers insight to the harsher lives that some children have to carry in comparison to some adults due to no child labor laws. Kelley’s writing was meant to persuade the audience to improve child labor laws and safety by appealing to pathos.

As America entered and went through dark economic tensions, President Kennedy strived for stable prices and wages. After the largest steel companies raised steel prices by 3.5 percent, Kennedy gave a speech in response. In the speech, Kennedy calls out the steel companies for actions that were “wholly unjustifiable” and “irresponsibly defiant” to the American people. He appeals to the audience’s emotion, uses repetition, and applies logic to achieve his goal in persuading the companies to lower steel prices.

This speech by Florence Kelley is filled with numerous rhetorical strategies. Giving her speech in Philadelphia, she touched the hearts of many. Appealing to the emotions of the other women in the audience, Kelley got her point across. She despised child labor as she felt it was dangerous and inappropriate. By using rhetorical strategies such as imagery, anaphora, and forced teaming, she engages the right audience (women attending the suffrage convention) whom were already seeking change.

The use of sarcasm adds variety to Kelley’s speech, this in turn kept the audience interested in the viewpoint brought forth through her argument. Florence Kelley makes use of oxymorons to show sarcasm, as distinguished in lines 44-45, “the pitiful privilege of working all night long”. During the 1900’s many believed that it was beneficial and necessary for children to work in hazardous conditions in order to supply an income for their families. By using this oxymoron, Kelley was able to show her audience that this “privilege” and righteous action was in fact distressing. Florence Kelley’s use of sarcasm was valuable in developing her viewpoint. Her use of sarcasm and oxymorons challenge the audience’s sense of what is possible, which causes them to more deeply ponder the situation at hand. Florence Kelley wrote her speech with the intention of attacking the dangers of the country’s policies and in the hope of making a difference in the country’s

Before we look at the different Social/Psychological Determinants of Health it is important firstly to define what a social determinant of health is. According to the World Health Organization (2017) “The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age.” These conditions are as a result of a wide range of factors that are ultimately governed by the way in which money, power and specific resources are shared at different levels including those at global, national and local levels. We have all been a part of and will experience different social determinants of health throughout our lives but it is the standard at which we experience these determinants that will ultimately lead onto them affecting our health or ultimately leaving us unaffected.

Kelley’s use of imagery assists her audience in visualizing the inhumanity of the practice. She begins by talking about the amount of children and the drastic rate of increase of the wage class. Kelley then uses the quote “Tonight while

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.

At the Virginia convention in 1774, the delegates such as Patrick Henry, gather to decide their course of action, in a time where their primary goal was to rid themselves of their oppressor, Great Britain. Patrick Henry addresses the other delegates and discloses his opinion on what course of action the people should take. In his speech at the Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry forcefully influences the audience to go to war with Great Britain through diction, figurative language and rhetorical devices and by confronting them with their current position of danger in the face of the inevitable British Invasion.

At the start of her speech, Jill Bolte Taylor, critically displays pathos with the use of her brother's mental disorder. Standing in front of a crowd of fascinated people, she uses pathos to capture their compassion. At the start of her speech, she engages with the audience by saying, "I grew up to study the brain because I have a brother who has been diagnosed with a brain disorder, schizophrenia." (Taylor). This use of pathos was highly effective because she captures their attention making them feel sincere and sympathetic towards her. This, ultimately, will cause them to want to keep listening to what she has to say.

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.

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

The rhetorical question gives the reader a sense of what this whole text was written for which is to give an answer that speaks for itself. Intro: Mary Ann Shadd Cary was an African American abolitionist, newspaper publisher, lawyer, educator and writer. When she moved from the United States to Canada to work with the slaves who received freedom due to the Fugitive Slave Act, she writes referring to this particular community to have their own voice through a newspaper of their own. To achieve this she uses techniques such as rhetorical strategies, parallelism and persuasion in her text from an editorial “Why Establish This Paper?” that appears in Provincial Freeman.