Harry Mozley Stevens was born on June 14, 1855 in London, England, United Kingdom, but emigrated to Niles, Ohio in the 1880s. In 1882 Stevens and his wife, Mary Wragg Stevens, moved to the United States, settling in Niles, Ohio. They came with a daughter and two sons, the youngest being Frank Mozley. Later two more sons were born, and in time all five children joined the father's concessionaire firm.
His boyhood education benefited from a well-stocked family library. An assiduous reader, he developed an abiding love of Shakespeare's works. This interest, augmented by a flair for rhetoric, became a part of his personality, which could be characterized as thoughtful, enthusiastic, and convivial, as well as persuasive and ambitious.
At Niles, Stevens found work as an iron puddler and within nine months had organized a union and led his fellow workers in a strike. Later, with the assistance of Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, Stevens became a book salesman.
In the meantime both he and Frank Mozley became American citizens. Stevens was still selling books in 1887 when he attended a baseball game in Columbus, Ohio. Dissatisfied with the information on his scorecard, he designed a vastly improved model. For $500 he acquired the concession to sell his scorecards at the Columbus park, an investment he immediately recouped by selling $700 worth of scorecard advertisements.
When his scorecards sold well, Stevens obtained other concessions from Tri-State League clubs; and before the year ended he had the scorecard concession for the World Series. Over the next four years "the scorecard man" acquired similar concessions at many major- and minor-league parks, including Milwaukee, where fans welcomed his German-language version.
"Scorecard Harry" hawked cards with colorful aplomb, reportedly popularizing that oft-repeated cry, "You can't tell the players without a scorecard!" Moving to New York City in 1894, Stevens obtained full concession rights at the Polo Grounds, where he sold scorecards and snack foods to fans of the New York Giants.
Shortly after 1900 he revolutionized the diets of fans by offering peanuts, soda pop with straws, and hot dogs as alternatives to the then traditional lemonade and ice cream fare. Stevens' famous "hot dog" was a conversion of the familiar dachshund sausage, which Stevens then swathed with mustard and bundled into rolls.
But its immediate and lasting popularity owed to sports cartoonist Thomas A. ("Tad") Dorgan, who depicted it in a famous cartoon and dubbed it by its ever familiar name. As his offerings expanded, Stevens shrewdly acquired his own peanut farm in Virginia. A favorite of sports fans, players, and sportswriters, Stevens wore the title of "Hot Dog King". It was said that his was "the loudest voice ever heard in Harlem. "
As Stevens' growing army of hirelings sold food to fans, he was expanding his concessionaire enterprise into a profitable new catering industry. In the years before World War I he employed hundreds of uniformed workers, whose loyalties he won by his generosity and paternal concern (which included pension benefits). Thus, Stevens could send his "Marching and Chowder Society" far afield to cater to patrons of hotels, indoor shows, exhibitions, and racetracks.
By the 1920's Stevens was famous for his epicurean menus available to the carriage set at such places as the Saratoga Race Track and Madison Square Garden dining rooms. But serving outdoor sports crowds remained his chief concern. When he died in New York City in 1934, Stevens held concessions at the five major-league parks in New York and Boston.
Notwithstanding Stevens' charismatic presence, the firm was run as an integrated family enterprise, with the sons and a son-in-law eventually joining the business. Frank Mozley succeeded his father as president and treasurer of the company. He already had thirty-eight years of experience with the firm, having worked in it since age sixteen. He was a balding, genial man who loved baseball (he was a director of the New York Giants), and under his low-profiled leadership the scope of company operations widened so that letterheads soon read "From Coast to Coast. " The firm catered to a variety of shows and public entertainments, yet outdoor sports, including thirty-six racetrack concessions, remained the chief focus. As major-league baseball expanded westward in the 1950's, Stevens men followed.
But in the 1960's the firm's baseball concessions dwindled to Shea Stadium in New York and Fenway Park in Boston. Still these were lucrative; ballpark concessions grossed more than ticket sales. But the scope of Stevens' operations extended far beyond ballparks; 6, 000 workers catered to trade shows, conventions, and exhibitions, including all events staged at the New York Coliseum.
Stevens died at his home in New York City a few months after his retirement.
Harry Mozley Stevens's enterprise was known as Harry M. Stevens, Inc. , having been incorporated in 1925. The New York City-based business used a letterhead proclaiming the scope of its services "From the Hudson to the Rio Grande. " Despite many disputes over the claim to Stevens having been the inventor of the hot dog, in early 2013 Derby City Council and Derby Civic Society jointly announced they would erect a Blue plaque to his memory on his first marital home at 21 Russell Street in Derby, England.
On December 28, 1904, Stevens had married Gertrude Honhorst; they had two children.
