My understanding is that a large number of them listened to the news on the radio and went about their daily lives pretty much unaffected.
A technical point. Radio began making an inroad into American homes during the Depression, but those radios were expensive. The poor couldn't afford radios. In this period, illiteracy was rampant. News was transmitted when the man in the family came home and told the family during the evening meal what he had heard during the day, filtered through his own prejudices. Radio did not become affordable until the beginning of the war.
True, they were dirt poor but most that I have spoken with look back on those days fondly.
It was a case of the rest of America coming down to the level these people had always known.
I have an example from my mother's side of the family. This side did poorly during the Twenties. My mother's older sister was pulled out of high school in 1926 by my grandmother, given subway fare and sent to the Curtis Publishing Co. to seek work. Her wages were needed for the rest of the family to survive. To her credit, my aunt ended up becoming managing editor of "Ladies' Home Journal" before her retirement in the Sixties. Being a high school dropout did not hold her back, and her religious faith prevented her from resenting what my grandmother had done to her. (I would have punched the old biddy's lights out for just suggesting that I drop out of school!) Needless to say, this branch of the family was staunchly supportive of FDR and remains Democratic today.
College these days is the gold standard and it shouldn't be.
Remedial reading in college has been the standard since the 70’s.
My grandfather was one of the most accomplished man I've ever met with a 4th grade education.. He taught himself algebra and watch making. He was a big Dem but he hobnobbed with governors and senators.
In those days graduating from high school was the exception not the norm.. in the 40’s there were still medical schools and law schools that existed outside college.
The industrial base still persisted, most people worked in factories or in skilled trades..Young men apprenticed in a trade to learn the construction arts instead of spending time uselessly in high school.
You really lost me there, Pub. Why on earth would someone with pluck and determination support FDR (maggots be upon his corpse)? And especially why "needless to say"?