Of course, people had newspapers and radio, and there were many sources of data on the overall health of the economy, not just from personal experience. Additionally, people had had experiences of depressions previously, even very severe ones. There was a short but significant depression in the US in 1920-'21. The stock market crashed, unemployment went up to around 10%, many businesses went bankrupt or saw massive reductions in revenue, and overall GDP contracted. Going back further, in the 1890s there was a previous great depression that rocked the country, with unemployment above 10% for more than half the decade, and numerous bank runs.

By the late 1920s the public was well aware of what a depression looked like. Initially after the "Black Tuesday" stock market crash of 1929 and then the recession beginning in 1930 there were hopes that it would be similar to the 1920-'21 depression: not very severe and very quick. But it didn't take long for those hopes to fade, unemployment shot up into double digits and then into new territory (above 20%), bank after bank failed, and GDP fell not just by a little but by double digits.

There were numerous uses of the terms "depression" as well as "great depression" to describe the economic state of the US and the world during the early 1930s, including by US President Hoover. The term "The Great Depression" as a proper noun to describe the depression of the '30s came in use after the publication of a book with that title in 1934 by British economist Lionel Robbins.