Born in 1915 and raised in New York City, Arthur Miller attended college in Michigan during the Great Depression of the 1930s. It was during this time that he grew concerned with how economic and social pressures can warp individual morality, an issue that would dominate his works throughout his long career. Though eventually he would win recognition as one of the preeminent American playwrights of the later twentieth century, Miller had an unsuccessful start with a play called The Man Who Had All the Luck, which closed after only four performances in 1944. He spent the next two years writing All My Sons, which brought him overnight success when it opened on Broadway in January 1947. While Miller’s next play, Death of a Salesman (1949; also in Literature and Its Times), is generally ranked as his foremost achievement, critics continue to rank All My Sons as one of the playwright’s major works. Like Death of a Salesman, All My Sons uses the relationship between father and son to explore larger issues, in this case a conflict between family loyalty and social responsibility.
Arsenal of democracy.
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