Rhetorical Analysis On Florence Kelley

Factories were utilizing children to do the hard work. They employed children as young as five or six to work as many as twenty hours a day. According to Document C, children worked in factories to build up muscles and having good intellect in working rather than getting an education. They became a different person rather than conventional children. There were additionally health issues due to child labor: rapid skeletal growth, greater risk of hearing loss, higher chemical absorption rates, and developing ability to assess risks. Progressive Era reformers believed that child labor was detrimental to children and to society. They believed that children should be protected from harmful environments, so they would become healthy and productive adults. In 1912, Congress created the Children’s Bureau to benefit children. The Keating-Owen Act was passed in 1916 to freed children from child labor only in industries that engaged in interstate commerce. However, it was declared unconstitutional sinc...

Whether being said or being written, there is always a purpose behind the way words are utilized. Words, oftentimes, educate, inform, or even deceive the minds of individuals, but the true power they derive from has brought about the contribution of others resulting in effective outcomes. Although words hold many different purposes, its key motive is evident when used to sway an individual’s position in public controversial matters. The influence that writing and speech can induce, based on the use of words through diction, tone, and pathos, is what creates change in individual’s perspectives on social views.

In the Child Labor in the Carolinas, photos and depictions of children working in mills show how working class children did not have the opportunities to branch out and have a childhood as defined by today’s standards. Though the pamphlet creators may have been fighting for better standards for child labor in textile mills of the Carolinas, they simultaneously show how working class families depended on multiple members to support the family: in “Chester, South Carolina, an overseer told me frankly that manufacturers [in] all the South evaded the child labor law by letting youngsters who are under age help older brothers and sisters” (McElway, 11). Children were used because they were inexpensive labor and were taken advantage of in many ways because they were so...

In the late 1800s, the years following the Civil War particularly, there was an era of industrial growth which led to a growth in the working class. This growth gave rural families a dream of a better life, so many moved to cities for steady and reliable jobs just to be disappointed. They were met with jobs that required long hours, little pay, and unsafe working conditions. Due to the awful pay even children as young as three sometimes had to work and often met injuries and death. (Childhood Lost: Child Labor During the Industrial Revolution) Even those families who did not live or move to the city were required to work long hard hours on the farms, and it was not uncommon for young children to have many chores to help the family. Mornings usually started around 5:00am with the mother starting breakfast and the father doing whatever hard labor he needed for the rest of the day to go smoothly. The chores for the children were split up based on gender; while the girls worked on preparing meals, and doing basic chores around the house the boys helped their fathers out on the field. (B) This made a vast difference in how children developed as compared to today. Due to how much work children had to do to help their families many of them didn’t have much time to play or go to school, in fact it was not uncommon for children to drop out

Rhetorical Analysis of Florence Kelley’s Speech Florence Kelley’s address to the National American Woman Suffrage Association (1905) touches upon both the social and political aspects of the need for reform regarding child labor laws. By revealing the shocking truth about how young children around the country work for long hours in inappropriate conditions, Kelley is able to emphasize the urgency of this situation. Simultaneously, she defends women’s suffrage by presenting the logical statement that there would be laws to prevent extreme child labor if women had the right to vote; more progress could be made if women and men worked together, starting with women’s right to vote. In her address to the National American Woman Suffrage Association,

As an activist against child labor it would only seem reasonable that Florence Kelley would deliver a speech on the evils of child labor-however- this speech about child labor is a mere pawn in Kelley’s strategy for her ultimate argument. Kelley knew that her audience was a group of women and because she knew her audience well she used emotional appeal to make her argument. Kelley’s entire speech may look as if she’s fighting against child labor but it’s just a mere deploy; the true purpose of Kelley’s speech is about women’s suffrage. Her use of language and emotional appeal are what ultimately help her in her success with her argument.

The labor conditions that children faced were very demanding for a human being from such a small age. For example “In the Manayunk district of Philadelphia, children as young as seven assisted in spinning and weaving of cotton and woolen goods” (Wolensky 2). The children working in the factories had their childhood freedom taken away from them. “In 1830 in a sample of 43 Manchester mills, 22.3% of the workforce was under 14 and 32.4% under 16” (Cunningham 412). This means that about 50% of the workforce in the mills were made up of children under the age of 16 and in today in the United States, a person cannot work until the age of 16. “And it is a hard thing for small children to be confined in a tight close room all day long. It affects their growth, makes them pale and sickly” (Nason). The time these children spent in the factories prevented them from spending time with their neighbors, friends, and family. The fact that young children had to work in these textile mills, created changes to American culture on how childhood years are supposed to be spent.

During the Industrial Revolution it was a time of advancement and new thoughts and ways of teaching in America but it wasn't only like that. Technology and military weapons were advancing and adults weren't the only one working in the factories. In the 1900s, 18 percent of all American workers were under the age of 16, children have been forced into child labor. Two historians named Eric Foner and John A. Garraty brought out that,”The new supply of child workers was matched by a tremendous expansion of American industry in the last quarter of the nineteenth century that increased the jobs suitable for children”. The two factors that Eric and John is too led to a rise in the percentage of children ten to fifteen years of age who were gainfully employed. Although the official figure of 1.75 million can understate the true number, it indicates that at least 18 percent of children were employed in 1900. “In southern cotton mills, 25 percent of the employees were below the age of fifteen, with half of these children below age twelve. In addition, the horrendous conditions of work for many child laborers brought the issue to public attention. Determined efforts to regulate or eliminate child labor have been a feature of social reform in the United States since 1900.” Harsh conditions were brutal for the children there were almost deaths that occurred, but the leaders in this effort were the National Child Labor Committee, organized in 1904, and the many state child labor committees. With the NCLC organized, gradualist in philosophy and thus prepared to accept what was achievable even if not theoretically sufficient, employed flexible tactics and were able to withstand the frustration of defeats and slow progress. The committees pioneered the techniques of mass political action, including investigations by experts, the

According to Helen Sword (2012 pg.48), “A carefully crafted sentence welcomes its reader like a comfortable rocking chair” and “helps its reader navigate tricky terrain like a well-hewn walking stick”. Therefore, varying styles and methods of sentences are an important construct in the written language. Hence through examining Julia Gillard’s and Rebecca Sloan’s use of sentence structure and grammar, this rhetorical analysis will attempt to explore how differing mediums and cultural contexts of writers portrays their credibility which are effectively used to convey a particular agenda to their intended audience.

Children had no choice but to face the harshness of being part of the work force as they needed to support their families. By and large, children did work equal to that of adults, but the work was much more dangerous to the incompetent children. For example, Mary Paul, a 16-year old textile factory worker writes “I am at work in a spinning room tending four sides of a warp which is one girl’s job” (Document 1). In addition, the vast majority of factories employed children in dangerous positions such as this, creating a hazardous environment. As well as this, the complex machines were often difficult for the children to operate due to their small size, yet they were still expected to do work equal to that of an adult. In fact, children were also severely injured because of their harsh working conditions, for example, Elizabeth Bentley, a former factory employee, testified before the court saying “Yes, it is very common indeed [to have crooked knees]” (Document 7). Children like Elizabeth Bentley were perfectly healthy before commencing work in factories, but were left crippled. In fact, business owners even favored employing children as they could pay them even less than women. As a result, children, to business owners, were the perfect employees, they were cheap, less resilient, and small enough to complete complicated tasks in small spaces. Additionally, Children often had to perform dangerous