Alex Poche

Ms.Turner
AP Language and Composition
05 November 2013

Florences Appeal To The Phili Ladies
In her speech to the National American Woman's Suffrage Association in Philadelphia
before the conference, Florence Kelley used imagery, repetition, and calls her listeners
to action to persuade them to lean towards her opinion about child labor.
One of several tactics Kelly uses is imagery. She attempts to put into these white
womens minds that there are little girls, young enough to be their own daughters that
are working through the textile, mills, all through the night,in the deafening noise of the
spindles and the looms[...]. She illustrates the harsh environments and soul crushing
labor that these small children have to endure night after night.
Florence also uses constant repetition to add emphasis to her point. She infact
repeats the same phrase while we sleep to show all the things that happen while these
women have turned in for the day. She says that while we sleep, thousands of little
girls will be working in textile mills[...] while we sleep little white girls will be [...] working
eleven hours a night. She repeats the phrase several more times when she talks about
six and seven year old Georgia girls working because Georgia laws have no restriction
whatsoever. The repetition makes the listener think about the other times they have said
that phrase and helps tie together the whole message.
Another and maybe most important tool used in this speech is Florence Kelleys
call to action to the listener. in the last couple lines, line 85 to end, Florence urges these
women to tell their husbands to vote against or at last to put regulations on child labor.
Towards the end of her speech she says to the listener There is one line of action by
which we can do much. We can enlist the workingmen on behalf of our enfranchisement
just in proportion as we strive with them to free the children. Here, she tells these
wives,mothers, and grandmothers that the children need to be freed. The appeals to
the maternal instincts in a woman to protect their children that are trapped and need to
be freed from the unjust system of child labor.
Florence Kelley was a successful reformer in the 1900s because she knew how
to properly convey her message with imagery and repetition. She did not only know
how, but she also knew to whom and how to make them feel like they needed to get up
and do something about it right now, calling the mothers to action and to free these
suffereing children.