It was still an issue, the problem was either you just didn't have the knowledge and/or money to deal with it, were working with bad scientific beliefs based on real problems that were solved differently, or just lived in what used to be a much more mild climate.

In especially the 1930s-1950s the poisonous construction materials did in fact have slowed effects when you had a drafty house, so it became practice and advice to not fully insulate the home, to not create a sealed environment since the homes that did have good insulation and a good seal generally had more 'mysterious' deaths that were attributed to 'stale air' and even brought back the term 'miasma' for a while. It was gas/lead/asbestos/arsenic/CO/CO2/Radon poisoning. But back then they had correlation and used it as causation because why would air ever hurt you.

That and for the most part you had trouble keeping the house warm, not the opposite problem, so the cheapest and time tested solution was more blankets and a stone fireplace for part of the year and just deal with the outside temp the rest of the year, even on really hot days like the record breaking Chicago high of 102 in 1918 where the average was, you know, 80 for the several decades before and after that.