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There is a point to be made about technology and the comforts, others have pointed out the obvious ability to hire people for that much money back then.
Another slight problem is the status differential. A hundred K back in 1959 puts you in a different social status for the day than that amount would today. Yes, you could buy more and better shit with it, but what people often want to buy with their cash is status. Whether luxury cars, penthouse apartments, living in a trendy neighborhood of a major city, etc. A hundred K today you could keep your head above water on a suburban mortgage outside a third-tier city and be respectably middle class. A hundred K in 1959 is enough to live like a country squire or the upper middle class of a major city. Send your kid to Harvard and shit.
I'm guessing there might be more than a few people who would choose 1959.
No doubt on the relative status, but that's kind of the question -- how much would you really sacrifice for relative status.
Most Americans could retire abroad for a song. They don't, because relative status isn't all they care about.
Yet many do, and many more will do so temporarily on vacation or work trips. Given the difficulties and the pull of familiarity, family, culture etc., this is to my mind some evidence for the power of relative status.
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This is an old "problem", wittily described by a quote attributed to Agatha Christie
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