While rose-tinted glasses are a huge factor, I feel like a big part of what people dream of when looking back on the last century is not just leisure, but stability and dignity.
Stability in that you had jobs that lasted a lifetime and paid a pension once you retired, not layoffs every couple years. Dignity in that anyone could get a real, important, meaningful (and very rough, once you take off said rose-tinted glasses) job as a factory worker, farmer, coal miner, whatever, instead of what, working at Walmart or 7-11?
I do agree with you though, especially your last paragraph.
Coal used to power entire countries, and it still runs our steel mills. American industrial might and American quality of life was only possible because of our coal miners. A Walmart stocker puts cheap Chinese stuff on shelves.
The typical romanticized coal miner is a masculine figure, a breadwinner, the representative of an industry that might have been core to the family and town for generations. A Walmart stocker is a guy in a T-shirt. Walmart itself is famous for... pricing out local businesses whenever it comes to a small town.
I'm not at all denying that it's a culture and glorification thing. I just think this is a factor people sometimes miss when looking at how a lot of the country is nostalgic for the 20th century economy, and why people keep wanting (mostly via vibes) to reindustrialize America.
Stability in that you had jobs that lasted a lifetime and paid a pension once you retired, not layoffs every couple years. Dignity in that anyone could get a real, important, meaningful (and very rough, once you take off said rose-tinted glasses) job as a factory worker, farmer, coal miner, whatever, instead of what, working at Walmart or 7-11?
I do agree with you though, especially your last paragraph.