Frederick Nicholas Zihlman

Who was Frederick Nicholas Zihlman?

Frederick Nicholas Zihlman was an American politician.

Born in Carnegie, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA, Zihlman moved to Maryland with his parents, who settled in Cumberland in 1882. He attended the public schools, and entered a glass factory in 1890 as an apprentice glass blower. He was later president of the local flint-glass workers' union from 1904 to 1909 and was a member of the national executive board in 1905 and 1906. He served as president of the Allegany Trades Council from 1904 to 1909, and as president of the Maryland State Federation of Labor in 1906 and 1907.

Zihlman served as a member of the Maryland State Senate from 1909 to 1917, serving as Republican floor leader in 1914 and 1916. He engaged in the real estate and insurance business in Cumberland in 1912. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1914 to the Sixty-fourth Congress, but was elected two years later as a Republican to the Sixty-fifth and to the six succeeding Congresses, serving from March 4, 1917, to March 3, 1931. In Congress, Zihlman was chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Post Office Department. He was also a member of the Committee on the District of Columbia and the Committee on Labor. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1930 and for election in 1934 to the Seventy-fourth Congress.