Explain the importance of the setting in The Crucible. Could this story have been set in a different time and place and still have the same effect?

The Salem Witch Trials are such a well-known and disastrous chapter of American history that using Salem during the 1690s as the setting for this story enriches its mood and meaning.  Such a setting works almost like an allusion, adding layers of meaning and symbolism to the story, enhancing what is written on the page due to the emotional connotation most Americans associate with Salem, Massachusetts, during this era.  Almost immediately after the trials, people came to understand that innocents had been murdered as a result of the terrible fear and hysteria caused by a handful of little girls.  The story could not have been set in a different time and place and still have had the same effect because there is no other era in American history where hysteria was permitted to run so wild that people are systematically murdered as a result.