Science in the public sphere: Understanding the meanings of "applied science" in the era of war, industrial research and modernism, 1900-1939

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Where today we might use the word "technology", in the early 20th century the term "applied science" was popularly used to describe the space between science and practice. Understanding how it and other related terms were deployed by scientists, politicians and laypeople, helps us today make sense of how science was interpreted then, and the assumptions that we have inherited through usages and stories from that time. This study will be a second stage in a study of the meanings of applied science from the French Revolution to the end of the Cold War.With the rapid development of new products, of science and its organisation, in civilian and military fields during the years between the beginning of the twentieth century and the start of the Second World War, there were many claims for the embodiment of "applied science" in artefacts, processes and culture. Its connotations could include industrial research; a form of knowledge and education; modern devices such as telephones, the wireless, and weapons; automation; and the modern way of life as a whole. The study will not evaluate the accuracy of claims about the relations between science and practice, but rather will reveal perceptions of the time. In scientific circles, the relations between what was termed pure science and its applications were issues in which the term "applied science" was explicitly debated. Again it was implicated in cultural crises in the 1920s including the call for a "science holiday", and became a matter of political dispute in the early 1930s when science was associated with both unemployment and with investment towards rearmament. The gas warfare practiced in World War 1, frequently cited as an example of danger posed by applied science, was to many people a warning of the threat posed by science, but to others, such as JBS Haldane, its use and frequently non-lethal effects was a challenge to the promotion of public understanding of science.Applied science fascinated the much-read HG Wells and such key literary figures as Aldous Huxley and James Joyce. There was great awareness at the time of the interaction of the private and public spheres, and leading scientists such as Julian Huxley broadcast frequently. The discussions of such intellectuals will be integrated here with the evolution of term's meanings in the public square. Above all, this study will follow their development through public debate, and through historical tales often serving as allegories for present and future, which deployed the term.The study will make use of the recent digitisation of many newspapers and magazines of the time to survey and interpret the uses they made of the phrase and cognate terms. The Listener Magazine published by the BBC printed many of the science-related wireless broadcasts. This study will look, too, at exhibitions which attracted millions of visitors at the newly reopened Science Museum in London and at the great Empire exhibitions in Wembley and Glasgow. These were considered such important public windows into science that the Royal Society mounted an exhibit specifically on pure science as part of the broader 1924 Wembley exhibition. Finally the study will use the many archives of important people of the time, including the first science journalists such as JG Crowther of the Manchester Guardian as well as scientist-administrators and HG Wells. Several important leadership activities, associated with the research, will promote the wider discussion of the fundamental issues. To encourage discussion of the meaning of applied science at the time within the wider historical community, there will be a major conference on modernism organised together with leading literary and design historians. To help historians of science engage with the interface between science and practice at the time, there will be workshops on the development of industrial research in the interwar years and on the impact of the First World War.