Arthur Miller and the Background to the Play

Abstract

Arthur Miller was born in New York City on 17 October 1915, the second of three children. His father was a fairly successful manufacturer of ladies’ coats, and his mother was a schoolteacher. They were a Jewish family and observed Jewish holidays and customs, but they were not strictly Orthodox; the younger generation regarded themselves as American rather than Jewish. In 1929 the Millers moved out to Brooklyn, which was then a semi-rural suburb, and where many of their relatives and other Jewish families had established themselves. .