Briana Medlin

Kelley FC
With her persuasive piece discussing the harsh working conditions of children to
motherly figures and other women in the audience at the Womens Suffrage Convention,
Florence Kelley unceasingly shifts from expressing the ideas of child labor to womens suffrage
in order to justify a change in the relentless child labor laws by gaining the ability vote for the
sake of our children (12) as to ensure the welfare of society.
Kelley appeals to the emotions of the audience, being that they are mothers, in order to
validate the need for womens suffrage and to end child labor as a means to ensure the welfare
of society as a whole. As she blatantly creates the image of Tiny children Under the sweating
system (9), Kelley develops imagery of small girls forced to make jewelry to evoke sympathy
from the audience in order to encourage women empowerment and abolish child labor. Kelley
informs the audience full of motherly figures about their own tiny children under the
sweating system... (9) evoking visual imagery of small children impotently working to make
jewelry by focusing attention on the implied meaning to sweatshops with, sweating system.
The emphasis on sweating system also creates the image of worn out children forced to make
clothing instead of receiving education or living a life of youthfulness. Kelley tries to dismay the
audience of the adolescents who involuntarily work in factories under unhealthy situations,
causing the mothers to desire empowerment. By incorporating the usage of little girls also
showcasing the children to be small and helpless, this more than evokes emotional guilt or
angst from the audience who wants more for their children. Kelley encourages this suffering

from her audience in order to pursue in freeing the children from toil. After hearing the
drudgery of the feeble children, the women become proactive in obtaining equal power to end
the labor the next generation is enduring benefitting the welfare of society as a whole.
No matter the outcome, the women were pressed about two major things which were
womens suffrage and child labor laws. If the women in the audience or even the author,
Florence Kelley, did not stand up for what they believe is right, the children would have
continued to work long hours throughout childhood. Presumably, if the women never stood up
to inequality, society would not have evolved in the way it has today, technologically,
religiously, and historically.