I agree. FDR did in fact have one of the biggest propaganda machines going to push his socialism agenda. Don't flame me folks I'm not saying those weren't hard times for many. My parents grew up during The Great Depression and were born before it hit.
You have to look at not just the stock market aspect but a bigger player was local or regional disasters making getting by rough. The Dust Bowl is a prime example. The ability to provide for needs was greatly diminished.
FDR also sent his propaganda crews into our region The Tennessee Valley and tried to portray those living here as backward, illiterate, poverty ridden, dirt farmers living in horrid conditions. Far from it. My Mom grew up on family farms mainly. They always had food. MY grandfather did everything from prison guard to helping build Norris Dam to owning a saw mill.
My Dad's family lived in the city. They too were poor but had a pretty good existence all things considered. I have a picture of my dad and his brother and sister playing on tricycles likely the 1920's vintage. In the summer my dads uncle would load up an army squad tent into his car and camping gear. He took my dad and my dads brother up to a camp on the river. He helped them get set up and he went back to town to work. Next weekend he would drive back up and the family had plenty of fish to eat. My grandfather worked as a night supervisor over janitors and maintenance in a then famous Knoxville restaurant. The man walked to work every day and by every day I mean just that. They weren't rich.
My dad even though he grew up in town would get on his bicycle on weekends during the school year and ride about 40 miles up to the camp on the river and a friend of the failiy's farm to spend the night and ride the bike home next morning.
By today's standards they were likely well below the poverty level. Granddad was originally from Oklahoma and left there with my grandmother who was from East Tennessee and he returned back here with her.
There were thriving communities in these ridges and mountains up too the flooding of the rivers. FDR used a Poverty Propaganda Program and soil erosion propaganda against this region to sell the forming of TVA The Tennessee Valley Authority to congress.
There was a Freeper from Virgina who had a wealth of information on the southern Appalachian region. I can't recall his user or real name right now. He passed on a couple years ago IIRC.
If you look at most of the pictures closely they are not pictures of poverty. Heck looking at the homes blacks lived in at North Carolina I'm rather amused. For the day those were actually good homes for anyone. They were the typical build. Cheap, affordable to most anyone, and they served the purpose. My first home as an adult back in 1980 after my Navy tour looked about the same construction. The inside was where it mattered. Me and my late first wife loved it.
Today I live in a double-wide me and my second wife bought over 20 years ago. The cost was what I could afford and was paid off in less than a decade. It will serve us well for our remaining lifetime. My Mom lives in a rather large two story brick home nearby. After Dad passed last year it's a considerable bit for her to keep up now.
I have seen kids just down right filthy barefooted and the boys had no shirts. I was born in the late 50's. I grew up middle class in the 1960's in a rural area mostly. The family across the road was poor as a church house mouse with 9 kids. We played together and at the end of the day all of us were clean before we went to bed that night in our homes. When playing though were got filthy by anyones stanndards. I have always been skeptical of how government portrayed things in The Great Depression.