In this December 11, 1939 issue of Life magazine, Juliette Marglen proudly shows off her inch+ long nails and even had a one year birthday party for them (how cute). As you can see they looked so so good...but sadly it does not have a happy ending.
https://books.google.com/books?id=5EEEAAAAMBAJ
I also remember somewhere an article from the 1930s or so where a woman has grown her nails for a few years or so because she was so pleased to have kicked her nail biting habit...I sure wish I could find it again.
Also sometimes in high school yearbooks (believe it or not) one of the senior categories was "longest fingernails" and I think at some county fairs in addition to "longest hair/ponytail contest" there sometimes was a "longest fingernails" contest. For example here Marilyn Pool in this 1976 yearbook proudly shows off her lovely glorious nails
http://www.classmates.com/siteui/yearbo ... 2?page=131
Some other nice LNB's from vintage yearbooks:
http://www.classmates.com/siteui/yearbo ... 84?page=50
http://www.classmates.com/siteui/yearbo ... 4?page=177
And back in 1982 (sadly she didn't have them for very long; pardon the pun) the First Lady of Country Music had some incredible nails!
https://youtu.be/_8mquPvw1_c?t=15m10s
Here Tiffany in her most famous song, if you pay attention is sometimes seen with some good nails:
https://youtu.be/w6Q3mHyzn78
So while we certainly didn't see very long nails very often, even in the decades past there were some.