Rhetorical Techniques Used In Florence Kelley's Speech

Florence Kelley appeals to the masses that the conscription of unregulated child labor is abhorring through the use of ethos, juxtaposition, and pathos. Kelley’s speech tackles on one of her main goals in life, regulations on child labor. Her speech moved the masses to fight for the rights of children, and she won. Kelley is responsible for the safe working conditions and the child labor laws that the United States has in implementation today.
In order to establish a strong connection with the audience, through the use of ethos, Kelley employs personal pronouns. Words such as “we”, “us”, and “I” are consistently used to have the audience identify her as one of their people. This technique is used in the passage where it reads, “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 to petition. For myself, I shall use this power…” where Kelley levels with the audience and establishes unity against the horrors of child labor. The application of personal pronouns in her speech is to convey ethos and unify the audience, along with herself, against the sweating system.
Kelley’s evidence centers around on her use of juxtaposition in which she

displays the states without regulations on child labor as states that force poor children to slave away even on a day that is meant to celebrate their birth. First, she targets the southern states by comparing Alabama to the rest of the lot, which allows Kelley to condemn North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia for “no restriction upon the work of children at night; and while we sleep little white girls will be working tonight in the mills,” factoring in the race card due to the white supremacy mindset that was prevalent in the south during this time period. Kelley’s use of juxtaposition is an implementation of pathos to portray the states with no regulation as evil and the ones with proper regulations as the so-called “better state” even when in the instance of being compared to multiple states at once.
For a speech concerning child labor, Kelley’s most powerful weapon is pathos. She preys on the sentiment of the public by personalizing the workers and talking about their hellish working life. Near the beginning of her speech, Kelley states, “Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through, in the deafening noise of the spindles…” This phrase uses children’s youth and the outrageous, exorbitant amount of time children have to spend working which would be even beyond an adult’s sleeping schedule. She consistently emphasizes their young age with phrases such as “...boys and girls, after their 14th birthday,” and “a little girl, on her thirteenth birthday…” as a form of juxtaposition where a birthday is supposed to be a celebratory time instead of a time where you’re forced to slave away your life. Pathos is strongly implemented to convince the audience that no regulations on child labor is a moral injustice.
Through the use of ethos, a compare/contrast model, and pathos, Kelley employs these rhetorical strategies to fight for regulations on child labor and call other to action to do the same.

Through the employment of personal pronouns, she establishes ethos with her audience by becoming more personable. The compare/contrast model takes up different places, those regulating child labor and those who aren’t, and glorifying one while demonizing the other, respectively. In order to sway public sentiment and pity to her cause, Kelley uses pathos with a strong “for the children” emphasis. These rhetorical strategies combine to persuade the audience to take up arms and demand for the fair treatment of children in the

workforce.