America, Sam? America, 75 years ago, was a spiritual wasteland. It was just then that the beginnings of a Torah world was being built in America. Prior to that time it was difficult to simply be a Shomer Shabbos in America. Prewar America in no raya how Jews should behave.
If you want to look how Jews behaved 80 or 90 years ago, you need to look where Torah communities thrived. That would be prewar Europe.