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Arthur Miller, born October 17, 1915 in New York, NY, was an American playwright who incorporated social awareness into his work. Miller who was affected by the Great Depression, saved his money and eventually attended the University of Michigan in 1938 where he started writing plays. Soon after Miller published his novel about anti-Semitism, with his first play All My Sons following shortly after. Miller based The Crucible (1953) after the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts when he considered it to be similar to the McCarthyism of his day. Miller's work The Crucible was adapted numerous times for television and film, and became one of the most performed plays in America.

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After weeks of informal trials, on May 27, 1692 the accused in the town of Salem were forced to defend themselves without aid from the counsel. The admission of spectral evidence was used in these trials; the victims could claim they had been attacked by spectres of the accused whom Satan had allegedly used to do works of his evil. As the accused stood and testified, the girls who accused them would writhe and contort their bodies to further provide evidence of a demonic presence. Those who confessed and named other witches were spared from the council's vengeance, believing a Puritan belief that God would decide their punishment. Those who didn't confess and pleaded innocent faced harsher fates and became martyrs.

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The Salem witch trials began in colonial Massachusetts, February 1692. During this time people in the colonies were fearful that the devil was present in their everyday lives, and that he was trying to tear them away from salvation. They also had a strong belief in the "invisible world" and that causes of misfortune was the devil at work. This intensity of their fear led them to speculate the different ways the devil could insert himself into their lives and communities. The citizens of Salem thought that the primary way that Satan did this was by entering the souls of young girls and controlling their minds and bodies allowing them to do evil deeds, such as witchcraft.

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The new Massachusetts Bay Colony would be a place of reform and a utopia where God would be found in scripture. This new theory of a "City Upon a Hill", developed by John Winthrop, was supposed to set the precedent for Christians all around the world. Here, the scripture of God was to be valued and coincide with a strong work ethic along with education. The Puritans of the colony built schools like Harvard and Princeton to teach young men and future ministers about God's word. They taught ideas such as grace and salvation and how it was a "free" gift from God for the "chosen" ones.

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The Puritans were members of a religious reform movement known as Puritanism which arose  in the late 16th century within the Church of England. They believed the Church of England was too similar to the Roman Catholic Church and wanted to "purify" the church due to ceremonies and practices not rooted in the Bible. The puritans felt that they had a mission from God to enact these reforms to lay a foundation for future religious, social, and intellectual order. Certain groups of Puritans migrated to Northern English colonies in the New World due to being under siege from the church and crown. The Puritans believed in Calvinistic beliefs such as grace, predestination, total depravity, and limited atonement.