238 Kline
One prominent commentator equated technology with applied sci-
ence and called it a fi eld of industrial research. Alfred Flinn said in 1921
that “industrial research in technology, or applied science, demands prac-
tical experience in the industry as a preparation for successful work.”^50 But
others referred to a more dependent relationship between the two fi elds.
In 1933, the venerable inventor Elihu Thomson praised MIT “as a center
for scientifi c advance in all that concerns the application of the principles
of science to practical needs, in the various branches of applied science,
called Technology.”^51
This dependent meaning persisted into World War II, alongside the
new discourse centered around changes in the meaning of the word “tech-
nology.” Although Frank Jewett, the head of Bell Labs and a leading mem-
ber of the Offi ce of Scientifi c Research and Development in World War II,
used “science and technology” a dozen times in a 1944 speech, he subor-
dinated technology to science. “I am proposing to use the word ‘technol-
ogy’ in its very broadest aspect to include not only the things we normally
think of as technology, which are mainly the applications of the physical
sciences to utilitarian ends, but also the application of the biological sci-
ences.” “All that we call ‘technology,’” Jewett continued, “is nothing but
the application of fundamental science discoveries and the employment
of scientifi c methods for useful or desirable purposes.”^52
On the other hand, the prominent experimental physicist, Ernest
Lawrence, claimed an interdependent relationship between science and
technology in scientifi c instrumentation. In a speech published in 1937
he drew the audience’s “attention to the great partnership of modern
times—science and technology.” Thirty years earlier, Veblen had referred
to the “copartnership” between “science and technology” and argued ex-
tensively that “machine technology” conditioned the craft thinking that
led to modern science.^53
The change in the meaning of “technology” from a fi eld of study and
research to the practices and state of the industrial arts, initiated by Veblen
in the social sciences, was refl ected in the phrase “science and technology”
as used by physical scientists and engineers. Speaking about science in
the federal government, George Burgess, director of the National Bureau
of Standards, said in 1924 that Leonardo da Vinci was “great in poetry,
letters, painting, sculpture, architecture, science and technology, military
and civil engineering.”^54 Princeton astronomer John Stewart claimed in
1937 that “The fi rst world war and the following booms and depressions
in business were only incidents in the continuing drama of onrushing
science and technology,” which included improvements in airplanes, au-
tomobiles, ships, photography, and radio.^55 Hugh Taylor, a physicist at