"The Crucible," by Arthur Miller, is an illuminating piece of theater. But as one of America's most often produced plays, it casts a spell over our cultural imagination that complicates the historian's task. The factual inaccuracies - composite characters, age changes, the adulterous affair at th...
Hitherto John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin had handled most of the examinations, with occasional assists from Bartholomew Gedney, Samuel Sewall, and Thomas Danforth. Now grand and petty juries composed of Essex County men and a large panel of distinguished judges would assess the validity of the ...