Assembled in an incredibly short span of time, the 196 titles of the "Milestones of Science" collection were brought together by Chauncey Hamlin of Buffalo's Museum of Science, with the financial and moral support of many of the ethnic groups in Buffalo, who paid for the acquisition of many of the items written by their fellow countrymen. A comparable collection would be all but impossible to assemble today without vast financial resources and a great deal of time. The books were acquired quite cheaply, as the rare book market had suffered severely during the era of the Depression when the collection was assembled.

Two documents, both addresses to the members of The Buffalo Museum of Science's 'The Thursday Club,' are wonderfully descriptive accounts of how the Milestones came to be. Chauncey Hamlin's own speech is a lyrical account of how the collection was conceived and its volumes collected during those troubled times in the 1930's. Almost forty-six years later, Albert R. Mugel, another member of the club and expert on the collection recounts Hamlin's address, presented to the club as World War II raged beyond the safe confines of the mysterious place where the club members met that night. Albert R. Mugel's paper highlights the collection's early history, but then adds to it the more contemporary drama of how its proprietorship changed hands from The Museum of Science to its current home, The Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.