Science and Technology 237reversing the order of the words, to technology and science, sounds for-
eign to our ears. The standard order, science and technology, refl ects the
common belief that technology depends upon science, especially when
the phrase is used as a substitute for “pure and applied science.” But the
history of the phrase is more complex and revealing that a simple substi-
tution.^43 Scientists and engineers used it early in the twentieth century to
denote two separate fi elds of study, science and technology. The present
meanings of “science and technology”—to denote the knowledge, prac-
tices, and artifacts produced by scientists, engineers, and inventors—did
not become widespread in the United States until the 1930s and 1940s.
The shift accompanied the changes discussed above in the meaning of the
word “technology” in the early twentieth century, which was popular-
ized during the Great Depression. Many social scientists and humanists at
the time contributed to widespread use of the term “technology” during
the debates over technological unemployment. Historian Charles Beard
employed it widely to mean an agent of social change in a manner cham-
pioned by Veblen. He also blurred the distinction between science and
technology.^44 Eventually, “technology” came to refer to the products—the
artifacts and systems—produced by the practical arts.^45
The history of the keyword “technology” is refl ected in the use of
the phrase “science and technology” and similar locutions by physical
scientists and engineers in the fi rst half of the twentieth century. In these
uses we see both an autonomous and a dependent relationship expressed
between the individual keywords of this phrase.
In the early part of the last century, “science and technology” often re-
ferred to a combined fi eld of study. In 1903, R. S. Woodward claimed that
“In the educational transformation that has come about in the last three
decades, our schools of science and technology have played an impor-
tant role.”^46 When A. H. Chamberlin referred to these as separate fi elds in
1909, he used the rare phrase “technology and science” to denote special
technical schools outside of the state university system.^47
The phrase “science and technology” could also refer to separate fi elds
of study. In regard to research, Raymond Bacon of the Mellon Institute
commented in 1914 that the “basis of this marked development in organic
chemical industries is the combined working of science and technology.”^48
The pure- science ideal held by leaders of the NRC did not prevent them
from speaking about “researches in science and technology” and creating
research “Divisions of Science and Technology” at its founding in 1919.
Divisions were devoted to the physical sciences, engineering, chemistry
and chemical technology, geology and geography, medical sciences, biol-
ogy and agriculture, and anthropology and psychology.^49