Dramatist Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915 and became one of America's most prominent playwrights following World War II. The postwar years also saw the rise of anticommunist feelings in the U.S., and Miller used The Crucible to draw comparisons between the American political climate of the 1950s and the Salem witch trials that had taken place in New England in the 1600s.
Puritans in Massachusetts. A thousand Puritan settlers arrived in New England in 1630 after leaving England. In the next fifteen years the Puritan community in the New World would have almost 20,000 members. They quickly prospered, but later encountered problems. Over the years, their communities suffered from tensions attributed to illness, personal feuds, dead livestock, and other factors. In the early 1690s the Puritan community of Salem abruptly exploded in terror over claims that some of its citizens were practicing witchcraft.
The Puritans had come to Massachusetts distraught over what they saw as the corruption of the Church of England. In Massachusetts they set up a colony dedicated to God. They hoped that, by working for his ends, they would become an exemplary society, both to England and the rest of the world.
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