Ames Laboratory, operated by Iowa State University for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), was established in 1947 to conduct basic research with particular emphasis on new materials.

Like the other national laboratories, Ames Laboratory was created in consequence of contributions made to the Manhattan Project. It was in Ames, early in World War II, that two college professors and a group of graduate students resolved a problem that had proved intractable to industry. Within months of Pearl Harbor, Frank Spedding and Harley Wilhelm devised a practical method for the large-scale production of pure uranium. While teaching industry how to do it, Ames furnished 1,000 tons of uranium for the Manhattan Project.

In the postwar years, processes were developed at Ames Laboratory for the production of metals such thorium, vanadium, and chromium that were considered exotic at the time. The processes were adopted by industry and most are still in use today.

Based on Spedding's earlier research, a pilot plant was built at Ames that produced 100-pound batches of the 15 rare earth elements in unprecedented purity. To tap a research source of 15 new metals, for these elements were hardly known before, would have been a triumph; but because each one in this family of the “fraternal fifteen” differs from its neighbor by a single electron, the research prospect revealed was virtually unbounded.