Elizabeth Barrett Browning's The Cry Of The Children

In Florence Kelley’s speech delivered to the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1905, the author employs empathetic repetition, strong facts, and piteous diction to inspire as many people as possible to work against child labor.

Florence Kelley was a United States social worker and reformer who fought successfully for child labor laws and improved conditions for working women. Throughout her speech to the Philadelphia Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she stresses the importance of changing the working conditions that are in place for children. By using child labor as her baseline, Kelley is able to talk about her main point, which is her suggestion for women’s rights with the help of repetition, strong word choice, and opposition.

In the documentary “The Children Who Built Victorian Britain” by BBC, talks about the children of the industrial revolution, it shows the jobs they had, where these children came from, their motivation and the progression of laws against child labor. Before the industrial revolution people used to manufactures their goods in their homes using simple machines, but in the late 1700’s this shifted drastically in Britain. They started to implement new ideas of modernization using industries to manufacture goods at a larger scale. The steam engine, iron and textile industries were one of the many industries that played a key role to improve economy, transportation and living conditions in the late 1700’s. Without the industrial revolution we wouldn’t have the technology that we have nowadays, but the industrial revolution also brought a dark chapter for history, the exploitation of children.

In America, there used to be unfair laws and regulations regarding labor. Children are put to work in harsh conditions, conditions often deemed difficult even for adults, and are forced to work ridiculous hours. Florence Kelley gave a speech at the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905. In her speech, Kelley uses repetition, pathos, imagery, logos, and carefully placed diction to express how child labor is morally wrong and inhumane.

In Florence Kelley’s speech before the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905, she argues that there are millions of young children working under harsh conditions that is not acceptable in human nature. Kelley promotes an end to child labor by utilizing pathos and repetition in her speech to strengthen her claim. By stating out facts, she compares the conditions of young boys and girls with healthy men in order to emphasize about child abuse and to encourage her audience to stand with her to fight for child labor laws.

The nineteen hundreds: children were working through the night while the adults were sleeping. Florence Kelley, a United States social worker and reformer, spoke out against this harsh reality. Fighting to improve child labor laws, she delivered her speech in 1905 at the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention, in Philadelphia. By incorporating anecdotes to emotionally appeal; shocking state statistics; and showing a strong, direct, and compassionate attitude towards children working, Florence Kelley reveals the harsh child labor laws and fights to improve their conditions.

I am writing to you on the behalf of Florence Kelley, a student I have taught since 1890. She hopes to further her education at United States University. Kelley has always been extremely hard-working, empathetic, and compassionate, and strongly believes in the rights of all people, especially women and children. A perfect example of this is when she said, “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” (Wamsley, 1336-1358). In this quote, Kelley was encouraging voters to vote for the abolition or at least limitation of child labor. As one can see, she is very persuasive and deeply cares about her work; she truly wants to free children from suffering due to unnecessary work. This considerate mindset is apparent in her entire work ethic and philosophy.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s The Cry of The Children was published in 1843, in an attempt to gain attention of the appalling child labor taking place at the time. Browning attempts to convey her strong opinions through the use of pathos in order to initiate an emotional response from the reader. The poem is ultimately about the miserable children who work in the mines and their horrific working conditions. She emphasizes the pain and suffering of the children mine workers and how this has limited their childhood and their quality of life.

In her address, she used pathos to grab the attention of the audience, by talking about happiness being achieved only by doing things that benefited others and that enslaving another is no different from dehumanizing them. The structure of her address shows the passion she had for the freedom of her people as well as the urge to unite women to join her cause. In her essay, she wants to inspire women to connect their maternal instincts to the abolitionist movement and give sympathy to the slaves as if they were their own flesh and blood.

Conditions of factories were not safe for anyone, let alone a small child. Due to these conditions many children died before their prime. Many children “began work at age 5, and generally died before they were 25” (www.victorianweb.org), America was beginning to lose an entire generation due to these working conditions that so many had to endure. Children were hired at an alarming rate. “In 1870, the first time census reported child workers, there were 750,000 workers in the United States age 15 and under, not including those who worked on family farms or in other family businesses” (“Child Labor in America”), these numbers were not something that was looked over, it astonished many. “A cotton manufactory of 5 or 6000 spindles will employ those 200 children” (Bremner 232). The workforce would continuously grow, hiring more and more children each day. Factories were good for using children as a means of their productivity. “Textile factories, for the most part […] were in the forefront of this industrial revolution, and children formed an essential component of the new industrial workforce” (Bremner 232). Many times without these children working some of these factories would not have survived through the revolution.

The Victorian period was a time of great hypocrisy. Despite the fact that the Protestant work ethic was gaining popular support amongst the Victorians and myths such as Samuel Smiles' "rags to riches" became part of mainstream Victorian culture, the Victorians were greatly divided into their respective social classes. Works like Thomas Carlyle's "The Irish Widow" and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "The Cry of the Children" exemplified the blatant disregard of the upper classes to that of the lower class. If the Victorians were divided amongst themselves, imagine what it was like for people of different religions and races. The Blacks of this period was one such race that suffered tremendously

The Victorian Era in England was similar to many other eras in various countries that experienced rapid industrial and economic growth—a period marked by rampant class warfare, child labor, and other social injustices. The texts of the era are plentiful, written by the factory workers and other laborers, as well as the factory owners, along with individuals outside of these constraints. Many describe the horrid working conditions, the monotony and lifeless character of day in, day out factory work, the effects this work has on families, and the progress, or the perceived notion of progress, by the business owners. Edward Mead 's "The Steam King," offers insight to the undefeatable industrious machine, recognizing the hardships the working class is burdened with, though the poem ends with some skewed hope—a vision astoundingly similar to what Andrew Ure sees in The Philosophy of Manufactures. These two texts differ, in an extreme way, in tone and the perception of life in the factories—Mead showing the human cost for economic advancement, Ure blind to the suffering of the factory worker—but both works hint that the suffering may be worth the industrial growth, thus ensuring prosperity for all.

Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett was born March 6, 1806 in Durham, England to Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett and Mary Graham Clarke. She was the eldest of twelve. Her father made the family fortune from a sugar plantation. In 1809, the Barretts moved to an estate called Hope End in England. Elizabeth Barrett’s childhood was spent happily at the family’s home in England. She had no formal education, learning solely from her brother’s tutor and from her continuous reading. She managed over the years to learn Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, Italian, German, and Spanish. She learned rapidly and began writing at an early age.

Ground-breaking, momentous, and a time of great struggle, the Industrial Revolution was famous for its innovations and infamous for the sobering reality it inflicted upon the standard family. Mid-18th century Britain brought poverty to everyday urban workers. With it, came an increase in child labor like never seen before. In order for a normal family to survive in the urban lifestyle, all members of a family had to work. This included children as young as four years to work as chimney sweepers, miners, and most popularized in 18th century Britain, factory workers. By the year 1800, children under the age of 14 in Britain’s factories accounted for 50% of the labor force (“Industrial Revolution, Child Labor”). Though the number continued to grow, all did not go unaccounted for. Romanticism, an effort opposite the movement, gave recognition to the emotional conflicts overlooked. Romanticism shed light on the daily struggles of the everyday man, woman, and the most neglected up until that period of time, the child. Throughout history, others have written about childhood, but Romantic poets began to question what it meant to be a child. The question, though not answered directly, later became revealed in their works where it exposed their belief systems. The role of the child in British Romantic Poetry represents the early life of Romantic poets, and the qualities they possessed in childhood.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I love thee?" This poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is one of many she penned for her husband Robert Browning. Using the basic form of an Italian sonnet with its fourteen lines and strict rhyme scheme - she manages to produce a surprisingly passionate poem.