My Dad told me he never noticed the Great Depression, he was born in 1917. It was all the same to him, depressed.
He was born in a house with no electricity, life then was not that much different from life in 1600.
We visited a number of museums on our trip and were reminded of the Plague, cholera outbreaks, war, naval bombardments (the British bombarded Copenhagen seriously in 1807), more war, (the Germans attacked in 1867 and took a third of their land), more war, the Swedes attacked I forget when and took their northern lands, life expectancy was not good.