2011 Question 2: Florence Kelley on Child Labor

                   Before child labor laws, safety laws, and minimum wage, there were no rules to govern the working class, especially children and women. Children and woman would work nine to twelve hour shifts at night to make a living. Florence Kelley was a United States Social Worker and reformer who fought successfully for child labor laws and improved conditions for working women. Kelley carefully wrote her essay to convey her message about child labor to the audience. She achieved her goal through the use of ethos, bandwagon appeal, and logos.

                    One of the main strategies Kelley applied was emotion. She knew that to get her point across to the audience, she would have to break their heart with stories of children trying to not die of starvation. “boys increase in the ranks of the breadwinners;” child labor reached its peak during the early 1900s around the time of the Great Depression. A time when most families could barely afford food. Many boys, girls, and women now had to take up jobs at dangerous jobs with horrid working conditions. Kelley uses this example to help appeal to the audience's sense of emotion. “ A girl of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the bobbins, may work eleven hours by day or night. And they will do so tonight, while we sleep.” Here Kelley fires another emotional outcry in to the audience. A young girl who is barely tall enough to reach the tools, will work eleven hours all while the people in the audience sleep. Kelley uses emotion as her main driver in her argument.

                  Bandwagon appeal is another one of Kelley's rhetorical strategies used. She uses this to gather the audience into one mindset. A mindset who's goal is to bring child labor laws and safety regulations to the working industry. “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 uses this paragraph as her main bandwagon appeal. When writing the paragraph, she always used the word “we” implying a sense of unity and that they are one cohesive unit. She also mentions that “ we should enlist the workingmen voters with us,...” She wants men who can vote (people who can make change) to join their cause. Bandwagon was another important technique used by Kelley.

                  Many people think that to persuade someone, you have to give as much scientific evidence as possible. That is false, most people have a moral code they believe in. It is more effective to appeal to their emotion and ethics. But it doesn't hurt to use logic. Kelley sprinkles in logic into her speech. “ In Alabama the law provides that a child under sixteen years of age shall not work in a cotton mill at night longer than eight hours, and Alabama does better in this respect than any other southern states.” Here Kelley lists a specific law and how it is applied. She also mentions that this is better than any other countries.