What did society think about black holes before Stephen Hawking?

Answer 1

Stephen Hawking applied Quantum Mechanics to the mathematics of black holes, before this they had only been studied using General Relativity.

With only General Relativity black holes could only form from the collapse of large stars, there was a minimum mass for a black hole, things only fell into a black hole causing its mass to always increase never decrease.

With Quantum Mechanics added black holes could form early in the Big Bang before any stars existed, there was no minimum mass for a black hole, a black hole could emit particle radiation thus losing mass and the more mass it lost the faster it lost mass resulting in the black hole exploding in a flash of particle radiation and ceasing to exist.