At the beginning of the 20th century many children and women were forced to work in deplorable and unsafe conditions. Florence Kelley, a United States social worker and reformer, fought successfully for the laws to improve these conditions. In a speech she delivered in 1905 to the Philadelphia convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she argues for the betterment of child labor laws in society by illustrating the scale of the issue and by emphasizing the hardships the children face to appeal to her audience’s emotions.
Throughout the first half of her speech, Kelley uses shocking statistics to inform the audience of the sheer amount of young children working and places where these laws are taking affect. For example,…show more content… Kelley is able to draw emotional appeal when she urges the audience that no one will “be able to free our consciousness” from what she refers to as “this great evil” which is standing idly by allowing these laws to even take place in the first place. She uses the quote to stress to her listeners that they have the ability to make change. Kelley’s use of parallel structure in paragraph 9 presents the audience with evocative imagery and also appeals to their emotions. She overwhelms the audience listing what children have to make and describes how the children are “robbed of their school life” to do work that adults could be doing. Her emotional appeals propound the idea of “what if my child had to do this?” to her audience and helps garner support to stop kids from having to endure these jobs. Kelley further emphasizes her desire to improve the laws when she calls her audience to action saying “we do not wish this” and suggesting for them all to use their right to petition to make change, which she alluded to earlier.
Kelley is able to establish child labor laws as a nationwide issue, she is able to protect the nations youth using her vivid imagery that illustrates the scale of the problem and her emotional appeals that garnered support and shined a light on the hardships that
