Just look at the crypto market and imagine if we all had to use those zany tokens to do things. We couldn't get anything done.
That used to exist back in the 1800's.
Our financial systems are very stable and far more resilient than we recognize. We take that for granted.
When is the last time depositors arbitrarily lost a pile of cash while not investing in risky things?
That's a 'new financial innovation' largely enabled by laws and oversight etc. that your great-great grandparents didn't have the luxury of having.
This is historically untrue. When complex societies civil war, they tend to fall apart. (Wars of unification being an exception.) Their citizens’ living conditions permanently fell, often for generations, until an outside power subsumed them.
This trend looks to be strengthening as time goes on, probably on account of increasing species-wide firepower and mobility. Instead, peaceful (if politically violent) “revolutions” reboot the society from time to time. One could argue the Great Depression was the last such restructuring of the American system.
A better argument would be the case that American involvement in WWII resulted in a larger restructuring of American lives.
Women entering the workforce.
The U.S. military fighting racial segregation.
The resultant boomer generation and the rise of labor until 1980.
Lowered income inequality.
The GI bill providing affordable higher-ed to a broad swatch of the populace.