https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era"
Your link:"Historians have moved back in time emphasizing the Progressive reformers at the municipal and state levels in the 1890s."
I'm not sure what you think "at about 1900" means, which is what I said in post 125. Or what "which started roughly at 1900", which is what I said at 86. That means about 1896, 1897, etc. Could even be 1892. Somewhere in the mid 1890s is "about 1900".
You need to read more, not I. You didn't even read your own link.
Fabian Freeway - High Road to Socialism in the USA
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2970415/posts
By trying to connect progressivism to the civil war, you are tilting at windmills. Phantoms.
You don't think Northern Liberals were "Progressive" in 1860?
Of the two sides, which do you think better fits the pattern of "progressive"?