Ether and modernity: the recalcitrance of an epistemic object in the early twentieth century

How was ether, an epistemic object largely accepted in the 19th century, regarded in the early 20th century? An older generation of philosophers saw the end of the ether as a paradigmatic case of falsification in science; but far from being unproblematically rejected, the ether was for many one element of modern physics and modernist culture. This text offers a snapshot of the status of an epistemic object, the 'ether' (or 'aether'), in the early twentieth century.