Florence Kelley Child Labor

During the growth of the Industrial Revolution in the mid 1800s, big companies and businesses started to boom. The growth of these companies provided many job opportunities for those in need. Those in need of jobs included men, women, and even children. Even after the Industrial Revolution, child labor was still a huge issue in America. With the rise of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, reformers such as Florence Kelley took the stage to improve the conditions for women and children in the workforce through labor reforms. Kelley, who was a worker and reformer, addressed this issue in her speech at the convention of the National American Women Suffrage Association in Philadelphia in the summer of 1905. She successfully used her persuasive and argumentative …show more content…
Kelley provided key points about the how prevalent child labor was at this time, “We have, in this country, two million children under the age of sixteen years who are earning their bread” (Kelley). This highlights Kelley’s effort at using factual information to support her argument about how so many children should not be working in these factories just to pay for their meals and to help support their families. The use of passionate language is also evident throughout her speech, “I shall use this power in every possible way until the right to the ballot is granted” (Kelley). Since women could not vote at this time, Kelley addressed how if women’s suffrage was instilled into their society, their voices could be expressed in issues involving things like child labor. Kelley also provides problem and solution scenarios in her speech, “Until the mothers in the great industrial states are enfranchised, we shall none of us be able to free our conscience from participation in this great evil” (Kelley). The “great evil” that Kelley is describing in her speech is the allowance of young children into these chaotic factories and she using the problem and solution tactic to try and persuade the audience. Kelley’s persuasive and argumentative style in her speech is supported by an abundance of facts which help contribute to her success in conveying her …show more content…
The tone that Kelley conveys a sense of optimism, and concern through her speech by using passionate language and factual information, “For the sake of the children, for the Republic in which these children will vote after we are dead, and for the sake of our cause, we should enlist the workingmen voters, with us, in this task of freeing the children from toil” (Kelley). Kelley’s tone that is expressed in this example shows how she is very optimistic about the future, if people realize these concerns about labor issues and Women’s Suffrage. The mood of Kelley’s speech shows readers how empowering she was, but it also shows how infuriated and sympathetic she was about the current situation that women and children were in at this time in history to persuade her audience. It is evident when Kelley’s words convey a sense of infuriation because of her word choice, “Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through, in deafening noise where the spindles and the looms spinning and weaving cotton and wool, silks and ribbons for us to buy” (Kelley). This emphasizes Kelley’s infuriation and her feeling of sympathy towards children in the workfork force and the long hours that these children spent in factories for little amount of pay. Throughout her