Arthur Miller Bio Scavenger Hunt!
Links to use in Arthur Miller Bio search:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/arthur-miller/none-without-sin/56/
http://www.enotes.com/topics/arthur-miller
http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-miller-9408335
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ma-Mo/Miller-Arthur.html
http://spartacus-educational.com/USAmillerA.htm
1- When and where was Arthur Miller born?
October 17, 1915 in Harlem New York, NY
2- What was Miller’s religion?
Jewish
3- What did his parents do for a living?
His father, Isidore, owned a successful coat manufacturing business, and his mother, Augusta, to whom he was closer,
was an educator and an avid reader of novels.
4- What event in the 1920s greatly impacted (and later influenced) Miller and his family?
The Wall Street Crash greatly impacted Miller and his family as they lost everything.
5- Did he go immediately to college following high school?
Yes he did
6- Where did he go to college?
University of Michigan
7- One of these plays won a major award. Which play, and what award?
Death of a Salesman
8- What is his play, The Crucible, about?
Set in 1692 during the Salem witch trials, The Crucible is an examination of contemporary events in American politics
during the era of fear and desire for conformity brought on by Sen. Joseph McCarthy's sensational allegations of
communist subversion in high places.Feb 6, 2021
9- With which liberal political view was Miller affiliated?
those dealing with inequalities in labor and race
10- What political figure brought Arthur Miller’s liberal political views under suspicion?
Joseph McCarthy
11- What was this political figure’s committee (which sought to erase political views such as those
held by Miller from the US) called?
In 1956 and 1957, Miller was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee and was convicted of
contempt of Congress for his refusal to identify writers believed to hold Communist sympathies.
12- To what VERY famous person was Arthur Miller married at one point?
Marilyn Monroe
The Crucible Internet Scavenger Hunt
DIRECTIONS: Copy and paste this document into Word and print out or keep open in another
window. You may either type your answers into your document or write them out on a sheet of
He is known for alleging
paper separately.
Use the links above the questions to answer the questions below them.
Using the following web sites, answer these questions.
http://iws.collin.edu/kwilkison/Online1302home/20th%20Century/redscare.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthyism.htm
On December 2,I. McCarthyism and the Red Scare of the 1950s:
that numerous
communists and Soviet
spies and sympathizers
had infiltrated the United
States federal
government, universities,
film industry, and
elsewhere.
1954, the Senate
A. What did Senator Joseph McCarthy have to do with the Red Scare of the 1950s?
voted to censure
B. What ultimately happened to his investigation?
The HUAC was created
Senator McCarthy
C. What is the HUAC, and what did it set out to do in the 1940s and 1950s?
in 1938 to investigate
by a vote of 67–22,
alleged disloyalty and
making him oneII.
of Blacklists
subversive activities on
A. Who was most likely to be named to these lists?
the few senators
the part of private
B. What happened to those accused by Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC?
ever to be
citizens, public
disciplined in this
employees, and those
Using the following web sites, answer these questions.
fashion.
organizations suspected
http://www.salemwitchtrials.com/faqs.html
of having fascist or
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm
communist ties.
III. Hysteria: Use the earlier two sites and these to answer part of the questions below.
A. What are some possible causes for the hysteria in Salem?
B. What prompted the hysteria during the Red Scare?
IV. Compare/contrast the play to actual historical events. How do they differ? How are they
alike?
A. List three ways that Miller’s play differs from the actual Salem court trials.
1. Abigail was made out to be the conflict starter more than she was the victim.
2. Abigail was the victim.
Was written a an example to show how the government suspecting any US citizen of being a communist
3. was closely related to the Salem witch trials
B. List three similarities of the Salem Witch Trials to the Red Scare of the 1950s.
The play The Crucible was written by Arthur Miller in response to him being accused of being a communist sympathizer in the 1950s
1.
These people were then looked at as and many of them lost their jobs because they were accused of supporting communism with little or no
2.
backing evidence.
He took courses under well-known playwright professor Kenneth Rowe. Miller liked to write on
3.
controversial topics
Use the following sites to answer the questions below
http://www.findagrave.com/php/famous.php?page=pr&FSctf=246
http://www.salemweb.com/memorial/
(Click on the "stones" and "chronology" links too here)
More than two
hundred people
were accused.
V. Images of Salem.
Thirty were found
A. How do the graves of the actual people who were accused of being witches differ guilty, nineteen of
from those who were the accusers and magistrates?
whom were
B. There is husband of another author we just studied who rests in the Burying Point. executed by
Who is he and who was he married to?
hanging (fourteen
C. According to the chronology, what time of the year did this start? What and who set women and five
these events in motion?
men). One other
man, Giles Corey,
Using the following web sites, answer the questions below it.
was pressed to
http://m.imdb.com/name/nm0007186/trivia
death for refusing
http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/miller/biography.html
to plead, and at
http://www.shmoop.com/arthur-miller/trivia.html
least five people
died in jail.
VI. Arthur Miller
Find some info about Miller and give a general background about him and include interesting
tid-bits.
Using the following web site, answer this question.
http://www.17thc.us/docs/fact-fiction.shtml
VII. Crucible and artistic license
A. What are four historical inaccuracies in the play? (example: Abigail Williams was not 17, she
was 11 and John Proctor was 60)
The Parris family also included two other children -- an older brother, Thomas (b. 1681), and a younger sister,
1.
(b. 1687) -- not just Betty and her cousin Abigail.
2.Susannah
Rev. Parris claims to Giles Corey that he is a "graduate of Harvard" -- he did not in fact graduate from Harvard,
3.although he had attended for a whileand dropped out.
4.Reverend Hale would not have signed any "death warrants," as he claims to have signed 17 in the play. That was not
B. Overall, how historically accurate is The Crucible?
Events such as those depicted in The Crucible have recurred with alarming predictability throughout human history. Miller has
never claimed that his story is historically accurate, although many of the broader strokes correspond to events that actually
occurred in Salem, Massachusetts during 1692.