American photographic patents 1840-1880 : the daguerreotype & wet plate era

We cite from the COVER:
"Photography was long anticipated by the scientific elite of the western world, and when it finally became a reality with Daguerre's historic announcement in 1839, word spread as fast as the means of transportation of the day allowed. The American painter and inventor Samuel F. B. Morse visited Daguerre soon after his announcement and began writing home about the exciting new process. Within a year of Morse's return to America, inventive Yankees had begun patenting inventions to refine the photographic process, beginning with Alexander S. Wolcott's "Concave Reflector and Plates" in May, 1840. Following Wolcott, many noted photographers filed for patents including Langenheim, Southworth & Hawes, Talbot, Whipple, Beckers, Bierstadt, Anthony, Mascher, Cutting, Wing, Anson, Dallmeyer, Sarony, Eastman, and Muybridge. In addition to these illustrious individuals, numerous others filed for patents including some from frontier locales such as Joseph Buchtel of Portland, Oregon, and John Todd of Sacramento, California."
"This book lists 810 invention and 22 design patents pertaining to a wide range of photographic processes, equipment and methodology. The list is in numerical order and includes the patent number, patent title, the name of the inventor, his or her residence, and the date the patent was issued. Each patent has been checked at the United States Great Lakes Patent and Trademark Center of the Detroit Public Library to determine its relevance to photography. A brief introduction, including bibliographic sources, accompanies the list. Forty-one patents are described in detail and illustrated. The whole is fully indexed."