T Rand Collins, MD, maintains the blog, Through a Vintage Lens. His article on the progression of shutters through history gives a glimpse at early attempts through to near modern times. It seems that faster emulsions forced the need for accurate shutters, leading to the spring-powered shutters still used in large format photography today.
His article, simply titled "Shutters," has an extensive bibliography. While the article is informative in itself, the bibliography does not have live links. While it is possible to cut and paste the links, it is not as easy as clicking them. These links will be reproduced below for ease of perusal after reading.
References by T Rand Collins MD, from the article, Shutters, on Through a Vintage Lens:
Cosens, Robert. “Photographers of Great Britain and Ireland 1840 – 1940: William England.” http://www.cartedevisite.co.uk/photographers-category/biographies/england-william/.
“Diaphragm or Leaf Shutter.” Living Image Camera Museum article. http://licm.org.uk/livingImage/Shutters-Leaf.html
“Early Photography.” http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/index.html.
“Exposure.” Wikipedia Article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_%28photography%29.
Kingslake, Rudolf. “A History of the Rochester, NY Camera and Lens Companies.” http://www.nwmangum.com/Kodak/Rochester.html#Ilex.
“Leaf Shutter.” Camerapedia article. http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Leaf_shutter
Ludwig, David Tristram. “Antique Cameras.” http://www.dtristramludwig.com.
Lungov, Wagner. “Photographs of my Family and Other Adventures.” http://www.lungov.com/wagner/index.html.
Purdum, Ernest. Online posting for Large Format Photography Forum. 2006. http://www.largeformatphotography.info/shutters-history-and-use.html.
Reiss, Klaus-Eckhard. “Up and Down with Compur: The Development and Photo-Historical Meaning of Leaf Shutters.” http://www.kl-riess.dk/compur.eng.html.
“Reprinted Company Catalogs.” Craig Camera Web Page. http://www.daguerreotype.com/lit_catalogreprints.htm.
Urban Exploration Forum. “Wollensak, the Time capsule.” http://www.uer.ca/forum_showthread_archive.asp?fid=14&threadid=44384.
Wikipedia article. “Focal Plane Shutters.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal-plane_shutter.
“Wollensak Lenses and Shutter Catalog, 1919.” http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/wollensak_13.html.
