You are just too young! I remember going into a record store and looking through racks of 78s trying to find anything that was vaguely folky. Burl Ives and Ed McCurdy were on the radio, also some western and some "hillbilly" and purists then were sneering at the Carters and Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe. Some of them sound pretty good to us now, but we are probably missing others who perform today.
I found good things here and there. The Weavers were popular for a while, then they were blacklisted. Not much was heard on the radio until the folk revival in the 60s. If that sometimes seemed slick and polished it at least gave us hope. And I thought "Hootenany' on television was a real delight.
I can go into most music stores today and find a lot more good traditional music, I can go to concerts large and small and buy cds from the performers. I have more good music to listen to than I ever dreamed of, and when I read what is posted on song challenges here, I am really encouraged. I have read some really good things right here and I believe people will continue to make music in the old "tradition" as they create new ones.