Light Writing: Technology Transfer and Photography to 1845

This article reviews the history of photography to 1845 in France, England, and the United States, emphasizing roles of collaboration, legal protection, and training in the development and transfer of the technologies of the heliograph, physautotype, daguerreotype, and calotype. It argues that early innovative work in photography was motivated by plural desires: to photo-illustrate printed publications, to capture scenes from nature, to render human portraiture, and to investigate scientific theories of radiation.