Arthur Miller, the author of “The Crucible”, was upset with the ‘witch-hunt’ of the 1950s. (The witch-hunt was a massive problem in the American government when random people were called out as spies without specific information. A prime example is Joseph McCarthy’s infamous speech where he ‘presents’ a list of documented Soviet spies. Conveniently, he did not actually show the list to anyone, so the validity of the document is very much in question). In a reaction to the witch-hunt, Miller made a connection to the Salem witch trials & showed how similar the false accusations of Salem were similar to the false accusations of the 1950s.