Today, youth like myself are allowed to pursue education and get jobs when they are willing. When the youth do end up getting their first jobs, we have limited hours. However, this wasn't so in 1905. Florence Kelley's famous speech in 1905 is based on the laws of child labor. Florence Kelley is a social activist for children and women.Florence Kelly speech is for the factories and governments putting these kids through misery. Florence Kelly argues that child labor is corrupt and it's not justified for children to pave a way for themselves by working day and night. Children should reserve the right to earn an education instead of being forced to work in unsettling, dangerous workplaces. To start off, Florence Kelly argues that the child labor …show more content…
Now, therefore, in New Jersey, boys and girls after their 14th birthday get to enjoy the pitiful privilege of working all night long.” (6) Florence Kelly positions Alabama good law against New Jersey's unfair rule. She also goes as far as to describe it as a pitiful privilege. She uses this decision to get the audience motivated to change these unfair conditions. Despite being a young age, you work all day in New Jersey at as low as 14. In addition, Florence Kelly goes on to talk about industrial state laws: In Pennsylvania until last May it was lawful for children, 13 years of age, to work twelve hours at night. A little girl, on her thirteenth birthday, could start away from her home at half past five in the afternoon, carrying her pail of luncheon as happier people carry their midday luncheon, and could work in the mill from six at night until six in the morning, without violating any law of the common heath. (7) Florence Kelley uses the choice of commonwealth to show that everything is going against the commonwealth of these …show more content…
“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? Until the mothers in the great industrial states are enfranchised, we shall none of us be able to free our concessions from participation in this great evil. (9) Florence Kelley uses the word enfranchised to show these women are denied their natural rights and furthermore cannot take action in freeing their children from their burden. And that all that take no action in this must feel the dread of showing no participation in saving their children. Finally Florence Kelly talks about how these children who are working so hard are the face of their future and if they don't take a stand now then this will never change.“For the sake of the children, for the Republic in which these children would vote for after we are dead, and for the sake of our cause, we should enlist the workingmen voters with us, in this task of freeing children from toil.” Florence Kelly alludes to the Republic that these adults who fought so hard, are what they leave behind for these young kids to vote for once there is no more. ready. Then the sand is
In the first paragraph, Kelley explains the ages of these labor-bearing children by saying that “they very in age from six...sixteen in more enlightened states.” The use of “enlightened” is purely sarcastic, and the speaker does not have any respect for those states that allow sixteen year old girls to do heavy-labor. For anyone in the audience that knows the literal definition of “enlightened,” they, too, would be squirming in their seats at the thought of child labor, even at sixteen years of age, being “enlightening.” In her fourth paragraph, she touches more on “enlightened” states by talking about Alabama. She uses “child[ren] under sixteen.. shall not work in a cotton mill at night longer than 8 hours,” and then says that Alabama “does better... than any other southern state,” to again show her sarcasm towards these states...
Poor, young children being forced to work nearly 24 hours day is a terrible evil that is no longer necessary in the 21st century, thanks to those willing to fight against it. One of those people was lover of freedom Florence Kelley. At the National American Woman Association on July 22, 1905, she gave a speech urging the women to ally with “workingmen”, ln 89, to vote against unfair child labor laws. In her speech, Kelley uses appeals to empathy, sympathy, logic, ethos, repetition, word choice, tone, and current events to defend her case.
During the early 20th century in the U.S, most children of the lower and middle class were workers. These children worked long dangerous shifts that even an adult would find tiresome. On July 22, 1905, at a convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia, Florence Kelley gave a famous speech regarding the extraneous child labor of the time. Kelley’s argument was to add laws to help the workers or abolish the practice completely. Kelley uses pathos to highlight the need for change and diction get her point across to the audience.
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 Florence Kelley’s 1905 speech to the Philadelphia convention of the National American Women Suffrage Association, she accentuates the obligatory need to reform the working conditions for young children.
Kelley describes working all night long as a “pitiful privilege” in lines 44 and 45. In addition to yielding such a sarcastic tone, this rhetoric device also shows how pitiful it is that children see their 14th birthday not as a happy milestone that is normally expected, but as an opportunity, like Kelley said, a privilege to start working. This pushes her audience to consider that though this may indeed be a beneficial privilege to some, it is a great injustice in the eyes of another. This injustice is later reiterated by the comparing child labor to “great evil” when she states no one will be able to free their consciences from participation in such injustices until women are given the right to vote. Not only does this intensify the leading purpose of her speech, but further motivates her audience to take action in fighting for her cause.
Florence Kelley was a social and political reformer that fought for woman’s suffrage and child labor laws. Her speech to the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association initiated a call to action for the reform of child labor laws. She explains how young children worked long and exhausting hours during the night and how despicable these work conditions were. Kelley’s use of ethos, logos, pathos, and repetition helps her establish her argument for the reform of the child labor laws.
Rhetorical Analysis of Florence Kelley’s Speech Florence Kelley’s address to the National American Woman Suffrage Association (1905) touches upon both the social and political aspects of the need for reform regarding child labor laws. By revealing the shocking truth about how young children around the country work for long hours in inappropriate conditions, Kelley is able to emphasize the urgency of this situation. Simultaneously, she defends women’s suffrage by presenting the logical statement that there would be laws to prevent extreme child labor if women had the right to vote; more progress could be made if women and men worked together, starting with women’s right to vote. In her address to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Florence Kelley establishes a dramatic tone and appeals to her audience’s emotions to persuade them to advocate for a reform of child labor laws by employing several rhetorical strategies. To begin, Kelley utilizes the audience’s sense of logic to generate answers to rhetorical questions such as, “If mothers and the teachers from 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?” and “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?”
On July 22, 1905, social worker and reformer, Florence Kelley, stood in Philadelphia before an audience and presented a speech about the idea of combing the women’s suffrage and child labor issues in order to make more probable advantages in both departments. Her speech was given in away to entice the crowd and motivate them to fix the issues at hand. She was able to effectively able to give her speech by appealing to the crowds emotions and by using ironic diction and syntax to engage the crowd into the words she was saying and backing them up with substantial evidence.
Many businesses and factories hired children because they were easier to exploit; they could be paid less for more work in dangerous conditions. Plus, their small size made many children idea for working with small parts or fitting into small spaces. Children as young as four could be found working in factories, though most were between eight and twelve. Despite the economic gains made by the business that employed them, many children suffered in the workplace. The industrial setting caused many health problems for the children that, if they lived long enough, they would carry with them for the rest of their lives. Children were also more likely to face accidents in the workplace, often caused by fatigue, and many were seriously injured or killed. Despite efforts by reformers to regulate child labor, it wasn’t until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that children under 14 were prohibited from
Children as young as young as five or seven years old worked in dangerous factories. Many times if the children fell asleep while on the job, they would slip and get stuck in the machines, resulting in death. Child labor in the late 1800’s was very unsafe and put the lives of young children in danger. The children worked in very dangerous conditions, most of the time it was factories. The conditions were very poor, the factories were dirty and unsafe for children. The children would work for up to sixteen hours with little to no pay.
Factories were utilizing children to do the hard work. They employed children as young as five or six to work as many as twenty hours a day. According to Document C, children worked in factories to build up muscles and having good intellect in working rather than getting an education. They became a different person rather than conventional children. There were additionally health issues due to child labor: rapid skeletal growth, greater risk of hearing loss, higher chemical absorption rates, and developing ability to assess risks. Progressive Era reformers believed that child labor was detrimental to children and to society. They believed that children should be protected from harmful environments, so they would become healthy and productive adults. In 1912, Congress created the Children’s Bureau to benefit children. The Keating-Owen Act was passed in 1916 to freed children from child labor only in industries that engaged in interstate commerce. However, it was declared unconstitutional sinc...
In the early 20th century, many Americans perceived woman as unskilled and deficient, due to this woman have never gotten the chance to prove how they can positively affect society. Document A, Supports Woman states; “They still love their homes and their children just the same as ever, and are better able to protect themselves and their children because of the ballot”. If woman were given the right to vote it would not only have helped the society by having more opinions, but it would have also helped women protect themselves and their children by voting for things like better education. Supports Woman explains how giving woman the right ...
According to the article “A History of Child Labor” reviewed by Milton Fried, a child could work as long as six days a week for up to 18 hours a day, and only make a dollar a week. Child labor was nothing but cheap labor. The big companies loved cheap labor because then they could make an item for not very much money, and make a huge profit margin. Fried continues to state how cheap the labor was, “One glass factory in Massachusetts was fenced with barbed wire ‘to keep the young imps inside.’ These were boys under 12 who carried loads of hot glass all night for a wage of 40 cents to $1.10 per night.” Unlike, children today who are in bed sleeping by 8 pm each night, these children had to stay up all night working to make just enough income for their families. Sadly, the children had no choice but to work for very little pay. Their mothers and fathers made so little money in the factory system that they couldn’t afford to let their children enjoy their childhood: “Other working children were indentured—their parents sold their labor to the mill owner for a period of years. Others lived with their families and worked for wages as adults did, for long hours and under hard conditions” (Cleland). The child had no other choice, but to work for these big
Imagine waking up at five in the morning to walk over a mile to a factory where you work until noon where you get a half hour break for lunch, then it’s back to work until nine or ten at night, when you are finally allowed to go home and you are only eight years old. Today that seems unimaginable, but during the early 19th century it was the everyday life of thousands of children whose ages range from as young as five until you died. During the Industrial Revolution many children were required to work dangerous jobs to help their families.