Miller wrote All My Sons after his first play The Man Who Had All the Luck failed on Broadway, lasting only four performances. Miller wrote All My Sons as a final attempt at writing a commercially successful play; he vowed to "find some other line of work"[3] if the play did not find an audience.
All My Sons is based upon a true story, which Miller's then-mother-in-law pointed out in an Ohio newspaper.[4] The news story described how in 1941–43 the Wright Aeronautical Corporation based in Ohio had conspired with army inspection officers to approve defective aircraft engines destined for military use.[4][5] The story of defective engines had reached investigators working for Sen. Harry Truman's congressional investigative board after several Wright aircraft assembly workers informed on the company; they later testified under oath before Congress.[4][5] In 1944, three Army Air Force officers, Lt. Col. Frank C. Greulich, Major Walter A. Ryan, and Major William Bruckmann were relieved of duty and later convicted of neglect of duty.[6][7][8]
Henrik Ibsen's influence on Miller is evidenced from the Ibsen play The Wild Duck, from where Miller took the idea of two partners in a business where one is forced to take moral and legal responsibility for the other. This is mirrored in All My Sons. He also borrowed the idea of a character's idealism being the source of a problem.[9]
The criticism of the American Dream, which lies at the heart of All My Sons, was one reason why Miller was called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the 1950s, when America was gripped by anti-communist sentiment. Miller sent a copy of the play to Elia Kazan who directed the original stage version of All My Sons. Kazan was a former member of the Communist Party who shared Miller's left-wing views. However, their relationship was destroyed when Kazan gave names of suspected Communists to the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare.[3][10]
