parents Isidore Miller and Augusta Barnett. Initially well off, the family faced hardship at the
onset of the Great Depression, prompting their move from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Arthur
finished high school with a lackluster record, but he developed an interest in writing and began attending the University of Michigan to pursue this interest in 1934.
After trying short stories and journalism, Miller began writing drama, and won two
successive Hopwood Awards for plays written at the university before winning the Theater Guild National Award for The Grass Still Grows in 1938. This year also marked his graduation and return to New York, where he was joined by his soon to be wife Mary Grace Slattery. He worked many jobs upon his return, including a stint at the Federal Theatre Project.
All the Luck, in 1944. The play did poorly and closed after four performances. Miller wrote a novel, Focus, to examine anti-Semitism while grappling with his dramatic failure. Positive
reviews of his novel led Miller to write All My Sons, a last ditch effort to make it in to the
Broadway stage. The tale of war profiteering and family was wildly successful and led to the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award of 1947, and it marked the first collaboration of Miller with director Elia Kazan.
![](https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/thecrucible/files/2017/05/miller-dos-rendering.jpg)
Miller’s next works, An Enemy of the People and The Crucible, blatantly criticized the
onset of McCarthyism and the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). The
Crucible faced tentative audiences in the social context of the era, but won a Tony award and is highly celebrated today. Some argue the play would have done better under direction from Kazan, but Miller and the director’s relationship waned in previous years.
Kazan introduced Miller to his mistress Marilyn Monroe, who went on to have an affair
with Miller himself. In 1952, Kazan named names in front of HUAC, provoking the alienation and disgust of Miller as he wrote The Crucible.
![](https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/thecrucible/files/2017/05/miller-monroe.jpg)
Source: Keene, Ann T. “Miller, Arthur.” American National Biography Online, Oxford
University Press, 2000.
Images: Upper left and right: Courtesy of playbill.com Below Left: Block, Herbert, Artist. Death of a salesman / Herblock. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/2006682398/>. Lower right: Monroe and Miller depart for London. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/94509075/>.