US Congressman. He was born one of eight children (he also had five sisters and two brothers), in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cummings Sullivan and his wife Catherine Connor "Kate" Sullivan on October 12, 1877. He was educated locally and attended common public schools and parochial schools. Following his education, he was employed at the Homestead Axle Works in Homestead, Pennsylvania, from 1890 to 1900. He also became known as a blue-collar laborer and worked at the steel mills at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1900 to 1909, before rising up to work in politics and law enforcement. During that time he married Caroline B. Wallish in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, on November 14, 1901, and the couple would have two children, both girls. He then entered politics and served as a Member of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, City Council from 1906 to 1909. He also served as a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, City Alderman, from 1910 to 1929, as Police Magistrate for the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1916 to 1923, and as a Member of the Board of Assessment and Tax Revision for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, from 1923 to 1929. He then decided to run for a seat in the United States Congress and was elected. A Member of the Republican Party, he then served Pennsylvania's 34th District (Seventy-First Congress and Seventy-Second Congress) in the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1929, to March 3, 1933. He was an unsuccessful Candidate for renomination in 1932. After his term in the United States Congress expired he was succeeded in office by United States Representative Matthew Anthony Dunn on March 4, 1933. After leaving the United States Congress he served another term as Police Magistrate for the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1936 until his death in office on December 31, 1946. He had been in public service for over forty years and he became well-known in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area where he gave baskets of food to the poor, sponsored football and baseball teams, and arranged benefits for youngsters, earning him the nickname of 'The Colorful Leader Of The Strip' and 'Paddy.' He passed away from a cerebral vascular accident (brain hemorrhage related to hypertension cardiovascular disease), at the St. Francis Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on December 31, 1946, at the age of 69, and was buried in Calvary Cemetery in that city. His wife Caroline passed away on June 6, 1955, at the age of 76, and she was buried with her husband.