Biography
Peter Clausen was a member of the International Seamen’s Union imprisoned at Maine State Prison in Thomaston following the 1921 seamen’s strike in Portland, Maine. He was among five men identified as serving manslaughter sentences arising from a fatal confrontation aboard a schooner staffed by strikebreakers. Prison correspondence published in February 1925 described the men’s confinement and appealed for support for them.
Peter Clausen was individually listed among the political and class-war prisoners in the Daily Worker of December 17, 1924. The newspaper gave the prisoner mailing location as Thomaston, Maine, Box A. The individual charge, sentence and custody endpoints have not been established. Named contemporary political-prisoner roster documents actual confinement; no sentence length or actual total established. December 17, 1924 is the publication date, not admission.
Daily Worker, December 17, 1924, original page 5, political-prisoner roster.
A letter from Maine State Prison published in the May 1926 issue of Labor Defender, signed by Danny Fallon, Peter John Dirks and Thomas Harty, reported that Clausen and Rundquist were already out of prison and at sea. The letter does not give Clausen’s exact release date or total time in custody.
