A Rhetorical Analysis Of Florence Kelley's Speech

During the convention of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association, Florence Kelley, A United States social worker, gave a speech about the nation’s current child labor status. Throughout the speech, Kelley uses various rhetorical devices and specific language to convey her thoughts on child labor while making a connection to women’s suffrage all at once. The significance of this message is to encourage women to support their right to vote. To begin with, Kelley’s use of pathos to induce logos helps her proceed into the mindset of the women in the audience. She begins by describing how children are “under the sweating system making artificial flower for us to buy.” (73), causing the audience to feel guilty for indirectly supporting the act of child labor. She uses this language to paint a picture into the audience’s mind to make them consider how wrong it is to pay for various items made by children. By repeating phrases like “And they will do so …show more content…
Kelley would like for the audience to recognize that she is a successful and educated woman, but at the same time realize that she also feels as though there needs to be a change of some sort. By using words like “we” and “us” Kelley creates a relationship with her audience which once again shows that she is not attempting to put herself those who are listening. Kelley goes on to use educated phrases like “pitiful privilege” and “little beasts of burden” to convey her position above them, but in a relatable way (44, 76). She wishes to show that she is still educated enough to say everything she wants to say in a respectable way. Doing this, Kelley creates a mindset for the women in the audience that lets them know it is acceptable to have this mindset and feel confident enough to once again speak up about both child labor and women’s suffrage to their husbands, who ultimately in this time held the majority of the power