Talk:Charles Feltman

Who invented the hot dog

An editor is wanting to change the lede sentece

Charles Feltman (1841–1910) was a German-American restaurateur who is one possible claimant to be inventor of the hot dog.

to

Charles Feltman (1841–1910) was a German-American baker who in 1867 invented the hot dog at Coney Island, NY.

and is insisting, as well as possibly almost surely using multiple accounts.

Anyway, the problem is that the idea of a sausage in roll is a fairly obvious invention, and I'm not sure that Feltman was really the first person to do it -- in fact, it's probably unlikely that no one in history has wrapped a sausage with a piece of bread, since both have been known since ancient times. However, that doesn't mean Feltman couldn't be the "inventor" in the sense of popularize his exact configuration.

But the problem is, even for that there are other claims, and one problem is, does "hot dog" just mean a type of sausage (it is often used that way, e.g. package of hot dogs in a store) or the sausage/roll package (often used that way, e.g. "get me a hot dog and a coke" with the expectation that a roll will be provided with the sausage). The type of sausage we call a "hot dog" was probably made in Frankfurt and Vienna well before Feltman. Another question is who coined the term "hot dog", which is not necessarily the same thing as inventing the frankfurter-on-a-roll concoction.`

Our article hot dog in its "History" section says "Claims about hot dog invention are difficult to assess... Around 1870, on Coney Island, German immigrant Charles Feltman began selling sausages in rolls... Others are credited with first serving hot dogs on rolls. A Bavarian immigrant named Feuchtwanger allegedly pioneered the practice in the American midwest; there are several versions of the story with varying details. According to one account, Antonoine Feuchtwanger's wife proposed the use of a bun in 1880: Feuchtwanger sold hot dogs on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri... In another version, Anton Ludwig Feuchtwanger served sausages in rolls at the World's Fair–either the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago or the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis... Another claim of inventing the hot dog is told by Harry M. Stevens, an American sports concessionaire whose vendors sold German sausages and rolls to spectators at the old New York Polo Grounds during the winter. He called them 'Dachshund sandwiches', but a New York Post cartoonist couldn't spell dachshund, so when he drew the cartoon, he called them hot dogs..."

Most of these are post-1867 though. The original Polo Grounds opened in 1888 I think. It is certainly quite possible, even likely, that Feltman and Feuchtwanger came up with the idea independently, and that Feuchtwanger's was the impetus for a more general adoption, via the 1893 or 1904 fairs.

This page from the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council says "Also in doubt is who first served the dachshund sausage with a roll. One report says a German immigrant sold them, along with milk rolls and sauerkraut, from a push cart in New York City's Bowery during the 1860's. In 1871, Charles Feltman, a German baker opened up the first Coney Island hot dog stand..." (But 1871 is when he opened his restaurant; he started making his sausage-and-bun concoction in 1867, according to article (which still might postdate the Bowery fellow).) This article has "it’s generally agreed that German immigrants to New York were the first to sell wieners, from a pushcart, in the 1860s" which again could mean Feltman or our Bowery fellow or someone else.

This article has "Also in doubt is who first served the first hot dog [on a bun]... There are several stories or legends as to how this first happened... German immigrants appear to have sold hot dogs, along with milk rolls and sauerkraut, from pushcarts in New York City’s Bowery during the 1860s". Again with the Bowery. None of these sources are scholarly, and they may be copying each other. Here is NPR, not scholarly but considered reasonably reliable, with "But the origin of the popular summer food is still cloudy. Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the online magazine Visual Thesaurus, says there are a lot of myths about the name 'hot dog'..." Zimmer debunks the Polo Grounds myth, but then goes on "Yale Law librarian Fred Shapiro has found evidence of hot dogs in Paterson, N.J., as early as 1892. Zimmer says that story starts with a frankfurter vendor named Thomas Francis Xavier Morris — also known as 'Hot Dog Morris'." This is after Feltman, but Zimmer is talking about the term, and the article concludes "As with some words in the English language, pinpointing the origin of a phrase is difficult, but Zimmer says he has faith in "Hot Dog Morris'."

So.... I would have to say not too much of this definitely established, and therefore I'm not comfortable with making a flat statement of fact "Feltman invented the hot dog, period". Dissenting voices are invited to present their sources and arguments. Herostratus (talk) 05:16, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

To summarize:

• Feltman did not invent the frankfurter sausage, commonly now called the "hot dog".
• Was certainly not the first person in history to make a sandwich-like concoction from a sausage and bread.
• Did not invent the term "hot dog" himself (it is unknown, but not impossible, that the public gave this appellation to Feltman's concoction in particular, though). He may have invented the term "red hot".
• May not have been the first person in New York City to sell hot dog sandwiches, as this is may have someone in the Bowery about the same time.
• May well have concocted the hot sandwich independently of some other people who may have done so. (It can't be know for sure if this is true -- he may have seen it in the Bowery, had it suggested to him by a customer, or gotten the idea somewhere else. It's a fairly obvious concoction.)
• Probably was the first person to sell hot dog sandwiches to the public in reasonably large quantities.
• May (or may not) have been the person who popularized the hot dog sandwich generally in America, as this may have stemmed from a later concoction by one Feuchtwanger, popularized via the World's Fair and from there spread throughout America. In all likelihood, Feltman and Feuchtwanger both had a part, and so did Nathan Handwerker and Harry M. Stevens (via his ballpark concessions) a bit later.

Insufficient to state that he was the sole inventor. We could expound on this more here, but the article hot dog is probably a better place. Herostratus (talk) 20:10, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

An anon editor stated that a May 2020 article in the NY Times apparently describes Feldman as the inventor of the hot dog, and in 1867. If true that's another data point, but no more. The editor did not provide a URL so we haven't seen it. Herostratus (talk) 05:41, 26 March 2021 (UTC)