Yes, the past definitely wasn't that cute, but outright denying that it was not very different is just as absurd.

The definition of "normal" has drastically changed, even over the last few decades. A hundred years ago much of the societal structures still revolved around farming (which it had for thousands of years before that), something which now only involves a small minority of people.

People love to look at the past, not as it existed, but superpositioned over reality as it exists now.

Farming has always been seasonal and before gasoline engines drastically changed their efficiency they often involved horses and oxen. There was a larger number of people living rurally but most of them weren't spending the majority of their year actually working on any farm.

The other nitpick of the post is, yes, of course, people in work clothes of any generation do not look particularly elegant. People didn't wear their work clothes all day and would have had nicer sets for special functions like church or weddings.