His work, and that of others such as William Leggo in Canada led to a revolution in printing and eventually to the mass marketing around the world of newspapers and magazines and books which combined photographs with traditional text.

Another inventor, William Henry Fox Talbot, an Englishman, took the development a step further by inventing the world's first multi-copy photographic process in 1841.

After another inventor tried but failed to etch a daguerreotype plate with electricity, Moss made a galvanic battery and began experiments that led in 1863 to the discovery of his photo-engraving process.

According to Benson J. Lossing "His wife stood by him with willing hands and an unswerving faith, while all his relatives tried to persuade him to abandon his hopeless and impoverishing quest.

[5] Perhaps an even greater obstacle arose from the opposition of wood engravers and the reluctance of artists to change their style of drawing to fit this new art.

The artists did not favor Moss because they were accustomed to sketching their drawings quickly with pencil and brush, leaving the finished work to be done by the slow and tedious toil of the wood engraver.

In the face of active opposition by wood engravers and the yawning indifference of publishers, Moss and his wife struggled in their home-workshop under penurious circumstances for eight years, attracting few clients, until they finally found several backers willing to invest in a new company devoted to photo-engraving.

Michael George Duignan, who was one of Moss' first backers, had published a massive work of a quarter million words in 1862, entitled Positive Facts without a Shadow of Doubt, which showed him to be an eccentric visionary with theories ranging from religion to philosophy to international affairs.

[6] Duignan urged the Actinic Company to make its national debut by publishing the first photo-engraved copy of the American Declaration of Independence.

[7] Duignan obtained the John Binns facsimile of an ornamental Declaration of Independence, published in 1819, and gave it to Moss to be photo-engraved.

Moss later claimed rights to the improved photo-engraving process he developed in May 1872 but he made no mention of the facsimile of the Declaration of Independence he created during that period.

Moss photo-engraved original work, but a large part of his business consisted of reproducing woodcut and lithographic prints for mass production.

Moss' process was enhanced over the years by continuing innovations such as Frederick E. Ives' invention in 1886 of half-tone engraving for newspaper photographs.

For 400 years before Moss' invention, publications used wood engravings for illustrations, a labor-intensive process done by hand that did not lend itself to mass production.