Florence Kelley: Master of Rhetoric

Child Labor is one of the most persistent and malicious problems of industrialized society. From the rise of industry in the mid nineteenth century, employers have used child labor, as they have realized that they can manipulate the defenseless children of the lower class, who are trapped in an endless carousel of poverty. It was in the early twentieth century when socially conscious activists attempted to improve society, many of these activists being women’s groups. Florence Kelley was one in the vanguard of social activism, who fought for the right of children for a childhood – so that they are not working endless hours in filthy conditions. In her speech Kelley used rhetorical devices and appeals to emphasize the plight of the child, attempt to make the audience emotionally involved with the speech, and finally call the audience to action by highlighting a larger purpose. In her mastery of rhetoric, Kelley proves herself an effective orator.

Kelley uses several rhetorical appeals to get the audience to empathize with the child laborers. First appealing to logos, she states startling facts like,“ two million children under the age of sixteen are earning their bread… varying in age from six and seven years.” Next Kelley also appeals to pathos by emotionally painting a picture of the plight of children, “While we sleep little white girls will be working tonight in mills.” Additionally, she uses other rhetorical devices such as similes. For example she calls a New Jersey law a “long backward step” and compares children to “little beasts of burden” who are “robbed of school. ” Kelley also uses juxtaposition to emphasize the difference between children and adult workers; a little girl carries “her pail of midnight luncheon as happier people carry their midday luncheon.” Finally, she uses asyndeton to emphasize the amount that children work, “they are in commerce, in offices, in manufacturing.” All of these literary elements create a broader sense for the audience of the harsh conditions of childhood labor.

Florence Kelley not only uses literary elements on a micro level, in individual sentences, but also on a macro level, throughout whole paragraphs and passages. In achieving this, Florence utilizes several overarching themes and elements. One such example of this is the thread of a child’s birthday that runs through the piece. She repeatedly mentions the birthday in the context of how much a child is working on that supposedly special day.  The harsh dichotomy between the mention of a birthday, colloquially a day full of cake and parties and celebration, and a child working in a cold and brutal factory allows for the audience to become emotionally involved. Yet another place where Kelley uses this tactic is in her repetition of the word our, to make the audience feel complicit in exacerbating the problem of child labor. She mentions our shoes, our stockings, our hats, our cotton underwear, to emphasize that the things that consumers buy are all made by children. Finally, Kelley has a broader purpose to her piece. She hopes that it will serve as a call to action to not only stop child labor, but to do this by fulfilling the dream of the women’s vote. She is a realist though, and realizes that while women cannot directly vote for child labor protection, they can enlist groups such as the unions to help. Here Kelley reveals the purpose of her speech, to inspire women to do whatever they can to stop child labor.

For one to have been simply listening to Florence Kelley’s speech on the floor of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, it would be easy to only see it as an elegant speech on child labor. But upon further inspection, it becomes evident just how linguistically complex the text is. Kelley is clearly a master of rhetoric. She weaves in figurative language, dramatic repetition, and threads of language that evoke emotion and sympathy from the audience. Her appeals to logos and pathos work together to inspire the listener to action. Her speech is ultimately successful not because of one tricky element, but because it masterfully incorporates them all.