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Ashley Jimmerson, Mackenzie Nagel, Ian Talley, Kayla Widlowski

Ms. Murphy

AP English Language and Composition

08 October 2020
A Rhetorical Analysis of Florence Kelley’s 1905 Speech

Child labor in the twentieth century ranked as merely one of the many social issues at the

time, and as any history textbook will say, it paled in comparison to bigger, bolder happenings.

But Florence Kelly defies the dry "facts" of the textbook -- to her, child labor not only ranked at

the top of America’s issues, but it was also the leading culprit of social dissatisfaction. Her 1905

speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association embodies this passion through

virtuoso rhetoric; among the most prominent strategies include passionate repetition, consistent

personal pronoun usage, and frequently similar word endings.

To begin, Kelley utilizes repetition as a way to get the audience’s emotions involved to

underline the responsibility of humanity in the United States towards the issue of child labor

laws. Throughout her speech, Kelley repeats the phrase “while we sleep” (Kelley 18). This adds

to the emotion of guilt she wishes to impose upon her audience. The guilt is a result of the idea

that while “several thousand little girls” are working “all the night through,” the adults are able

to be at home with the rest of their families and sleep soundly (Kelley 18-19). However, Kelley

implies that the adults should not be sleeping soundly while their children are “working eleven

hours a night” and that they need to wake up and face the issue of child labor (Kelley 31). Next,

Kelley reiterates the word ‘our’ when describing the work that children do in the factories.

Kelley states that children make “our shoes in the shoes factories” and “knit our stockings” and

“our underwear in the knitting factories” (Kelley 66-68). Through the repetition of ‘our,’ Kelley

insinuates that all who do not act against child labor, even though they do not promote it, are
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responsible for it. These words speak further than merely her audience of the National American

Woman Suffrage Association. ‘Our’ refers to the adult population of America. This broadens her

message to not only those who were there to listen to her speech, but is a call to action to all of

America.

Kelley first utilizes exclusive pronouns as a way of telling a story, but progresses towards

more inclusive pronoun usage as she begins to call the audience to action. At the convention,

Kelley states that “We do not wish this. We prefer to have our work done by men and women.

But we are almost powerless” (Kelley 78-80). The people at the convention (Women who are

fighting for voting rights) do not want children to be forced into labor at a young age. She says

‘we’ to establish a connection with the audience. She makes it an issue for everybody in the

convention, not just her and the children it directly affects. Kelly also introduces ways to put a

stop to such a crisis by saying that “there is one line of action by which we can do much. We

can enlist the working” (Kelley 85-89). She tells the audience that they must work to enlist the

help of people outside the organization to fight against child labor. She uses unifying pronouns

again, but in a different way. She sets up an ‘us vs. them’ mentality in a way that separates the

audience from the rest of society, which allows the audience to come together further.

Additionally, she pushes the idea that if they unite with ‘them’, then they may be able to gain

voting rights by convincing them to allow them voting rights so child labor can be fully

prevented.

Finally, Kelley organizes many topics by using similar word endings, which she uses to

try to gain the emotion of her audience. Kelley introduces the idea of child labor by describing

the growing population, “Men increase, women increase, youth increase, boys increase in the

ranks of the breadwinners; but no contingent so doubles from census period from census period”
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(Kelley 10-14). She is introducing the idea that the growing number of people only leads to more

boys working unsafe and brutal jobs. Women are exempt from these conditions based on

society's gender roles. Kelley also tries to highlight what the children's labor consists of,

mentioning “Children braid straw for our hats, they spin and weave the silk and velvet wherewith

we trim our hats. They stamp buckles and metal ornaments of all kinds, as well as pins and hat-

pins” (Kelley 70-73). She repeats the ideas of hat making to describe the tasks the children

endure. By mentioning all these ideas, Kelley is trying to raise awareness of how horrible these

conditions are and why we must put a stop to it.

Florence Kelley presents a well-rounded argument to the National American Woman

Suffrage Association and all other American men and women. She persuades her audience that

child labor is poorly regulated and reform in child labor laws is necessary. By utilizing

passionate repetition, consistent personal pronouns, and frequently similar word endings,

Florence Kelley guarantees the captivation of her listeners, just in time to deliver the most

important part of the argument -- the solution. Thankfully, her voice and many other Woman

Suffrage activists’ voices are heard. There have been great changes in child labor laws, and

equality regarding the right to vote has been established. Florence Kelley and many women like

her affect how civil rights are dealt with in today’s greater, modern, and more equitable world.