Biography
Kristen Svanum was a Danish-born Industrial Workers of the World organizer, secretary-treasurer of the IWW's Coal Miners' Industrial Union and a lead figure in the 1927 Colorado coal strike. He was arrested twice during the strike — held eight days in the Las Animas County jail before making bond, then re-arrested with a group of fellow organizers under Colorado's anti-picketing law.
1920s custody review: The March 3, 1928 Daily Worker, reporting from Denver on March 2, states that Svanum was arrested at Walsenburg on November 6, held until February 27, then sentenced to two days for inciting to strike. He served the sentence and was released before the report. The physical release day is not supplied; 1928 is recorded at year precision rather than calculating a date from the sentence. This later confinement is separate from the earlier eight-day Las Animas County detention.
Source: Daily Worker, March 3, 1928, page 2, Colorado Strikers Still in Jail. January 1 is a storage placeholder for year-only release, not the actual release day.
In his signed “Colorado on Strike!” (printed page 5), Svanum describes eight days in the Las Animas County jail before obtaining bond, with officials raising technical objections and intimidating prospective bondsmen. The editorial introduction says he had been arrested for a second time with twenty-nine other organizers as the issue went to press. This corroborates the separately recorded earlier eight-day detention; it supplies no exact booking or release day and does not combine it with his later Walsenburg confinement.
