A rhetorical analysis of Florence Kelley's speech to the convention of the NAWSA. Essay written in under 50 minutes as practice for the 2020 AP Language and Composition Exam. Prompt attached below. Florence Kelley was an outspoken member of society who fought for the rights of the people. One of her focuses, child labor reform, took center stage during her speech to the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Kelley speaks to an audience of suffragettes, likely the most powerful group of activists in America at the time, and successfully delivers her message calling for child labor reform by unapologetically informing them of the role they play in child labor, both by unknowingly reaping its benefits and by remaining idle for too long. Kelley references legislation from all over the country to prove just how young these children are and how long they work each day. She cites “two million children under the age of sixteen” and mentions the ages of hypothetical children throughout, the youngest being six. Kelley utilizes phrasing in the speech that highlights how it is thrust upon these children, like when she says “boys and girls, after their 14th birthday, enjoy the pitiful privilege of working all night long.” The suffragettes Kelley is speaking to are able to see through the falsehood that is these children’s supposed enjoyment. Kelley is sure to inform the convention of the grueling hours when she shares young girls whom Kelley describes as “just tall enough to reach the bobbins” can work “eleven hours by day or night.” In equipping her audience with the facts, the people of the convention no longer have an excuse to fight for reform. Throughout her speech, Kelley focuses on the role her audience plays in child labor daily. She begins more generally, stating “while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills all night through.” She repetitively mentions these children work upwards of eight hours during the night, contrasting this idea with “happier people” who work and eat lunch during the day. Kelley provides her audience with very clear imagery, bringing up hypothetical children who work all over the country. Model children who she may be citing as examples, but who exist in the hundreds of thousands all over the nation. She describes them as “little beasts of burden, robbed of school life that they make work for us.” Kelley describes the ways that these children make, knit, spin, weave, braid, stamp, and carry all types of clothing and decorative items for people, items members of this audience of activists have surely bought as they cannot easily be avoided. Kelley litters calls-to-arms throughout her speech in various forms. Near the center of her speech, she asks her audience “if the mothers and the teachers in Georgia could vote, would the Georgia Legislature have refused [to stop child labor in mills]” She continues to use this idea of women voting to prevent child labor throughout, connecting with the suffragettes on a deeper level. She even says “until the mothers in the great industrial states are enfranchised, we shall none of us be able to free our consciences from participation in this great evil.” There are only a few ways one can link the issues of women’s suffrage and child labor more directly. She finally calls upon her audience to “enlist the workingmen votes, with us” forging a connection between these two groups, activists and working voters, to inspire others to take up the fight. The most important aspect of rallying a group of people is not convincing them there is a problem or holding a mirror to their faces and showing them they are a part of it. Kelley takes the final step and rallies her audience, calling on them and empowering them to make a difference in the lives of millions of children all over America. Throughout her speech, Kelley conveys to her audience that their system is as fault without insulting them or belittling their ultimate goal of women’s suffrage, simply redirecting them to the more urgent issue at hand concerning their children’s safety.
May 2020, 11th Grade
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