I remember hearing this discussion more than 50 years ago with participants who has arrived in NYC from Eastern Europe circa 1910. In order to pay the rent, clothe the family and put food on the table they worked the American 6 day week in factories….goodbye Shabbos.
Children attended FREE Public School with limited rudimentary Jewish education given my a melamed a couple of afternoons each week.
As the family moved up the economic ladder, Shabbos work ended and the next generation kids went to Yeshiva or Day school. Those born in the late teens and early 1920s also afforded themselves of the college education available at CCNY and Hunter for only the cost of a subway fare.
This led to greater wealth as business owners and professionals and the ability to send the children to the best Yeshivos, buy the more expensive Cholov Yisroel and fund the frum institutions we take for granted today.
These families went from Euro-Traditional Jews to educated Frum Jews because of increased wealth, not in spite of it.
In the 50s and 60s increased wealth also meant vacations, summers and Yuntif at reliable certifed Kosher hotels in the Catskills or Miami Beach This was a much higher standard than the kitchens at a kuchelane in the 1930s, where all visitors prepared their own meals in the communal kitchen with no real supervision.
As prosperous businessmen, my father and uncles (A”H) had more available free time for learning than their grandfathers and great-grandfathers had as Greenhorns.
