Florence Kelley Speech Analysis

Civil right’s movements often cause a variety of strong and influential leaders to come to light. Florence Kelley was a strong and influential leader during the Women’s Civil Rights movement; she spoke at the National American Women’s Suffrage Association in 1905 to persuade in favor of change for the greater and common good. In her speech, Kelley utilizes pathos, anaphora, and connotative diction to convey her claim that the injustices of child labor can be reformed by women attaining political power (such as the right to vote) and that it is their moral obligation to do so. Throughout her entire speech, Kelley applies pathos to inspire sympathy, feelings of guilt , and appeal to maternal instincts. Portraying the children as “tiny”, “pitiful”, …show more content…
Kelley repeats “In Alabama”, “In Georgia, and “In Pennsylvania” to convey the magnitude of the problem. The repetitive list of states allows for the problem to seem never-ending in places it prevails, like the seemingly never-ending suffering of the children. The national perspective of the problem implies that it requires a national solution: women’s suffrage. This anaphora also appeals to logos as it shows there are multiple examples of the nature of the working conditions to illustrate that the practice has been supported by others. The defenseless, tired, “little” girls must endure the “deafening” noises “while we sleep”, implying she and her audience have been complacent in the injustice alongside her and her audience’s own oppressors which inspires a feeling of guilt and anger that opens her audience to creating reform. Ultimately, portraying the children as over-worked and defenseless in all areas of the country inspires uniform support for the reform, and if that alone would not convince women to take a stand she employs anaphora to show the extensive severity of the problem and produce feelings of guilt and …show more content…
Kelley uses rhetorical questions with “if mothers and teachers could vote” then “would [this law] have passed?”. These rhetorical questions imply that the women are the solution to the injustices being passed in the government; after all, if they had been capable of voting, the legislatures would not have passed. Kelley thus creates the idea that women are the only ones capable of creating reform to protect the children and that if they do not demand change, the children will remain defenseless. Kelley introduces her solution by first posing another question: “What can we do to free our consciences?”. Kelley then appeals to her audience’s morality by suggesting that “for the sake of the children” they must demand reform; that if not for their own free will, they must do it to “free the children from toil”. Kelley’s call to action and rhetorical questions reveal the concept that citizens, specifically the women, have a moral responsibility to insight political change by implying that women are the solution to the injustices of the