Florence Kelley's Speech Against Child Labor

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Recommended: Early childhood education theoretical perspectives

A social worker and prominent reformer, Florence Kelley in her speech against child labor depicts the monstrosities that children in the United States have to go through as a result of lack of regulations. Kelley presented her speech in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905 in front of the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She sets a somber tone in order to relate her message to the adults present at the convention in order to promote future legislation to stop child labor.
In the first part of her speech the speaker uses logos as a tool to construct the tone of the speech. She does this at the beginning particularly to grab the attention of the audience from the start. Kelley presents the audience with various statistical evidence to support her claim about child labor cruelty. For example “...two million children under the age of sixteen years...They vary in age from six and seven years and eight, nine, and ten years, to fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen years..” This is said in the introduction of her speech so before Kelley mentions anything the audience knows exactly the age of the young children who she will be speaking …show more content…

She creates this feeling between the audience and the message by using the word “We” by doing this the audience feels responsible for the cruelty of child labor. “We do not wish this. We prefer to have our work done by men and women.” She is implying that the audience holds these same opinions and even if they don’t the audience will feel included and will therefore be encouraged to help make a change. Kelley ends her speech by recommending to the audience that “we should enlist the workingmen voters, with us, in this task of freeing the children.” This leaves the audience with a possible solution that will help end the unfair and atrocious system of child labor in the United

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