The talk hosted by Ms. Keating brought up some interesting topics involving early 20th century politics in New York State specifically amongst women. One of the most memorable parts of the discussion was when Ms. Keating explained letters that were sent out to a large percentage of the female population in New York, prompting a response of thousands of letters in return. Read aloud, one of the letters depicted an overwhelming gratefulness for being listened to, for feeling like someone cared about their opinions, how they were doing, and what they had to say. On one hand, the difference between modern times and then amazed me, as the amount of connection with the outside world was so much lower. Still, there is still the politically recurring cry of wanting to be listened to that is still ever-so present in today’s world.

From that specific part of the talk, I was amazed on how similar the population is even when separated by a century. More than anything, it illustrated the importance of how desperately people want to be listened to, and how much they want their opinions to be considered important. Social media would be a great piece of evidence for that topic, with Facebook especially becoming a battleground of political opinions that everyone continuously tries to appropriate in order to feel listened to. The lecture made me wonder how much more information of the past would be useful in the present.