document_title: History of immigration to the United States

question_text: the bulk of immigrants coming to the united states between the late 1880s and the 1920s came from

question_tokens: the bulk of immigrants coming to the united states between the late 1880s and the 1920s came from

text: History of immigration to the United States

text: Colonial Era[edit]

text: In 1607 the first successful English colony settled in Jamestown, Virginia. Once tobacco was found to be a profitable cash crop, many plantations were established along the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Maryland.

text: Thus began the first and longest era of immigration, lasting until the American Revolution in 1775; during this time settlements grew from initial English toe-holds from the New World to British America. It brought Northern European immigrants, primarily of British, German, and Dutch extraction. The British ruled from the mid-17th century and they were by far the largest group of arrivals, remaining within the British Empire. Over 90% of these early immigrants became farmers.[1]

text: Large numbers of young men and women came alone as indentured servants. Their passage was paid by employers in the colonies who needed help on the farms or in shops. Indentured servants were provided food, housing, clothing and training but they did not receive wages. At the end of the indenture (usually around age 21) they were free to marry and start their own farms.[2]

text: New England[edit]

text: Seeking religious freedom in the New World, one hundred English Pilgrims established a small settlement near Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. Tens of thousands of English Puritans arrived, mostly from the East Anglian parts of England (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex), as well as Kent and East Sussex.,[3] and settled in Boston, Massachusetts and adjacent areas from around 1629 to 1640 to create a land dedicated to their religion. The earliest New English colonies, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, were established along the northeast coast. Large scale immigration to this region ended before 1700, though a small but steady trickle of later arrivals continued.[4]

text: The New English colonists were the most urban and educated of all their contemporaries, and they had many skilled farmers, tradesmen and craftsmen among them. They started the first university, Harvard, in 1635 in order to train their ministers. They mostly settled in small villages for mutual support (nearly all of them had their own militias) and common religious activities. Shipbuilding, commerce, agriculture, and fishing were their main sources of income. New England's healthy climate (the cold winters killed the mosquitoes and other disease-bearing insects), small widespread villages (minimizing the spread of disease), and an abundant food supply resulted in the lowest death rate and the highest birth rate of any of the colonies. The Eastern and Northern frontier around the initial New England settlements was mainly settled by the descendants of the original New Englanders. Immigration to the New England colonies after 1640 and the start of the English Civil War decreased to less than 1% (about equal to the death rate) in nearly all of the years prior to 1845. The rapid growth of the New England colonies (approximately 900,000 by 1790) was almost entirely due to the high birth rate (>3%) and the low death rate (<1%) per year.[5]

text: Dutch[edit]

text: The Dutch, primarily driven by the United East Indian Company, first established settlements along the Hudson River in New York starting about 1626. Wealthy Dutch patroons set up large landed estates along the Hudson River and brought in farmers who became renters. Others established rich trading posts to trade with Native Americans and started cities such as New Amsterdam (now New York City) and Albany, New York.[6] After the British took over and renamed the colony New York, Germans (from the Palatine), and Yankees (from New England) began arriving.[7]

text: Middle colonies[edit]

text: Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware formed the middle colonies. Pennsylvania was settled by Quakers from Britain, followed by Ulster Scots (Northern Ireland) on the frontier and numerous German Protestant sects, including the German Palatines. The earlier colony of New Sweden had small settlements on the lower Delaware River, with immigrants of Swedes and Finns. These colonies were absorbed by 1676.[8]

text: The middle colonies' were scattered West of New York City (established 1626; taken over by the English in 1664) and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (established 1682). The initially Dutch colony of New York had the most eclectic collection of residents from many different nations and prospered as a major trading and commercial center after about 1700. From around 1680 to 1725, the Pennsylvania colonial center was dominated by the Quakers for decades after they emigrated, mainly from the North Midlands of England. During this time, the main commercial center of Philadelphia was run mostly by prosperous Quakers, supplemented by many small farming and trading communities, with a strong German contingent located in several small towns in the Delaware River valley.[9]

text: Starting around 1680, when Pennsylvania was founded, many more settlers arrived to the middle colonies. Many Protestant sects were encouraged to settle there for freedom of religion and good, cheap land. Their origins were about 60% British and 33% German. By 1780, New York's population were around 27% descendants of Dutch settlers, about 6% were black, and the remainder were mostly English with a wide mixture of other Europeans. New Jersey, and Delaware had a British majority, with 7-11% German-descendants, about 6% black population, and a small contingent of the Swedish descendants of New Sweden. At this time, nearly all were at least third-generation natives.[citation needed]

text: Frontier[edit]

text: The colonial frontier was mainly settled from about 1717 to 1775. These were mostly Presbyterian settlers from North England border lands, Scotland, and Ulster, fleeing hard times and religious persecution.[10] The fourth major center of settlement was the Western frontier, located in the Western parts of Pennsylvania and in the South, which was settled during the early to late 18th century by mostly Scots-Irish, Scots, with others mostly from North England border lands. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Scotch-Irish migrated to America in the 18th century.[10] The Scotch-Irish soon became the dominant culture of the Appalachians from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Areas where people reported 'American' ancestry were the places where, historically, northern English, Scottish and Scotch-Irish Protestants settled: in the interior of the South, and the Appalachian region.[11] Scotch-Irish American immigrants, were made up of Scots who had initially settled in Ireland. They were heavily Presbyterian, largely self-sufficient, and generally hostile to Native Americans and Catholics.[13] They had little interaction with the primarily Catholic, native born Irish culture before immigrating. The Scotch-Irish arrived in large numbers during the early 18th century and they often preferred to settle in the back country and the frontier from Pennsylvania to Georgia, where they mingled with second generation and later English settlers. They enjoyed the very cheap land and independence from established governments common to frontier settlements.

text: Southern Colonies[edit]

text: The mostly agricultural Southern English colonies initially had very high death rates for new settlers due to malaria, yellow fever, and other diseases as well as skirmishes with Native Americans. Despite this, a steady flow of new settlers, mostly from Central England and the London area, kept up population growth. Initially, the large plantations were mostly owned by friends (mostly minor aristocrats) of the British-appointed governors. Many settlers arrived as indentured servants who had to work off their passage with five to seven years of work for room and board, clothing, and training, but no cash wages. After their terms of indentures expired, most of the indentures settled small farms on the frontier. The Southern colonies were about 55% British, 38% Black, and roughly 7% German.[citation needed] The Atlantic slave trade primarily ceased after 1775 and it was outlawed in 1808, although some slaves were smuggled in afterwards.

text: After 1630, the initial areas of settlement had been largely cleared of Native Americans by major outbreaks of measles, smallpox, and bubonic plague beginning decades before the settlers began arriving in large numbers. The leading killer was smallpox, which arrived in the New World around 1510–1530.[12]

text: Characteristics[edit]

text: While the 13 colonies differentiated in how they were settled and by whom, they had many commonalities. Nearly all were settled and financed by privately organized British settlers or families using free enterprise without any significant English Royal or Parliamentary government support or input. Nearly all commercial activity was run in small, privately owned businesses with good credit both at home and in England, which was essential since they were often cash poor. Most settlements were nearly independent of British trade since they grew or made nearly everything they needed; the average cost of imports per household was 5–15 pounds per year. Most settlements were created by complete family groups with several generations often present. The population was typically rural, with close to 80% owning the land they lived and farmed on. After 1700, as the Industrial Revolution progressed, more of the population started to move to cities, much like what had happened in Britain. Initially, the Dutch and German Americans primarily spoke dialects brought over from Europe, while English was the main trade language. Governments and laws primarily copied the English. The only major British institution to be abandoned was the aristocracy, noted by nearly universal absence. The settlers generally established their own popularly elected governments and courts on as many levels as they could and were nearly all, within a few years, self-governing, self-supporting, and self replicating. This self ruling pattern became so ingrained that almost all new settlements would have their own government up and running shortly after arrival for the next 200 years.

text: Irish Catholics[edit]

text: According to the Dictionary of American History, approximately "50,000 to 100,000 Irishmen, over 75 percent of them Catholic, came to United States in the 1600s, while 100,000 more Irish Catholics arrived in the 1700s." Indentured servitude was an especially common way of affording migration, and in the 1740s the Irish made up nine out of ten indentured servants in some colonial regions. However, they numbered only 40,000 or 1.6% of the population in 1780, more than half in Maryland.

text: After the colonies were initially settled, their population growth was made up almost entirely of natural growth with foreign-born immigrant populations rarely exceeding 10% (except in isolated instances). The last significant colonies to be settled primarily by immigrants were Pennsylvania (1680s+), the Carolinas (1663+), and Georgia (1732+). Even here the immigrants came mostly from England and Scotland with the exception of a large Germanic contingent to Pennsylvania. Elsewhere internal American migration from other colonies provided nearly all of the settlers for each new colony or state.[13] Populations grew by about 80% at a 3% "natural" annual growth rate sustained over a 20-year interval.

text: Over half of all new British immigrants in the South initially arrived as indentured servants.[14] They were mostly poor young people who couldn't find work in England and couldn't afford passage to America and. In addition, about 60,000 British convicts were transported to the new British colonies in Georgia in the 18th century. Most of these so-called convicts were guilty of being very poor and out of work. "Serious" criminals were generally executed. Ironically, these "convicts" are often the only immigrants with nearly complete immigration records as other immigrants typically showed up with few or no records.[15]

text: Other colonies[edit]

text: Spanish[edit]

text: Although Spain set up a few forts in Florida, notably San Agustín (present-day Saint Augustine) in 1565, they sent few settlers to Florida. Spaniards moving north from Mexico founded the San Juan on the Rio Grande in 1598, and Santa Fe in 1607–1608. The settlers were forced to leave temporarily for 12 years (1680–1692) by the Pueblo Revolt before returning.

text: Spanish Texas lasted from 1690 to 1821 when Texas was governed as a colony which was separate from New Spain. In 1731, Canary Islanders (or "Isleños") arrived to establish San Antonio.[16] The majority of the few hundred Texan and New Mexican colonizers in the Spanish colonial period were Spaniards and criollos.[17] California, New Mexico, and Arizona all had Spanish settlements. In 1781 Spanish settlers founded Los Angeles.

text: At the time they joined the U.S., Californios in California numbered about 10,000 and Tejanos in Texas about 4,000. New Mexico had 47,000 Spanish settlers in 1842. Arizona was only thinly settled.

text: However, not all these settlers were of European descent. As in the rest of the American colonies, new settlements were based on the casta system, and although all could speak Spanish, it was really a melting pot of whites, Natives, and mestizos.

text: French[edit]

text: In the late 17th century, French expeditions established a foothold on the Saint Lawrence River, Mississippi River, and Gulf Coast. Interior trading posts, forts, and cities were thinly spread throughout Louisiana such as Saint Louis, Baton Rouge, Sault Sainte Marie, Prairie du Rocher, and Sainte-Geneviève. The city of Detroit was the third largest settlement in New France. New Orleans expanded when several thousand French-speaking refugees from the region of Acadia (now Nova Scotia, Canada) made their way to Louisiana following British expulsion, settling largely in the Southwest Louisiana region now called Acadiana. Their descendants are now called Cajun and still dominate the coastal areas.[18] It is estimated that 7,000 European immigrants settled in Louisiana during the 18th century.

text: Population in 1790[edit]

text: The following were the countries of origin for new arrivals to the United States before 1790.[19] The regions marked with an asterisk were part of Great Britain. The ancestry of the 3.9 million population in 1790 has been estimated by various sources by sampling last names from the 1790 census and assigning them a country of origin. The Irish in the 1790 census were mostly Scotch-Irish. The French were primarily Huguenots. The total U.S. Catholic population in 1790 was probably less than 5%. The Native American population inside territorial U.S. boundaries was less than 100,000.[citation needed]

text:
U.S. historical populations

Country
Immigrants before 1790
Population 1790[20]

Africa[21]
360,000
757,000

England*
230,000
2,100,000

Ulster Scotch-Irish*
135,000
300,000

Germany[22]
103,000
270,000

Scotland*
48,500
150,000

Ireland*
8,000
(Incl. in Scot-Irish)

Netherlands
6,000
100,000

Wales*
4,000
10,000

France
3,000
15,000

Jewish[23]
1,000
2,000

Sweden
500
2,000

Other[24]
50,000
200,000

British total
425,500
2,560,000

Total[25]
950,000
3,900,000

text: The 1790 population reflected the approximately 50,000 Loyalists, or "Tories", who immigrated to Canada at the end of the American Revolution, and the less than 10,000 others who immigrated to other British possessions including England.

text: Of the total white population in 1790, about 80% was of British ancestry. In this era the population roughly doubled by natural increase every 25 years. Relentless population expansion pushed the U.S. frontier to the Pacific by 1848. Most immigrants came long distances to settle in the U.S. However, many Irish left Canada for the U.S. in the 1840s. French Canadians who came down from Quebec after 1860 and the Mexicans who came north after 1911 found it easier to move back and forth.[citation needed]

text: 1790 to 1849[edit]

text: There was relatively little immigration from 1770 to 1830; while there was significant emigration from the U.S. to Canada, including about 75,000 Loyalists as well as Germans and others looking for better farmland in what is now Ontario. Large scale immigration resumed in the 1830s from Britain, Ireland, Germany, and other parts of Central Europe as well as Scandinavia. Most were attracted by the cheap farmland. Some were artisans and skilled factory workers attracted by the first stage of industrialization. The Irish Catholics were primarily unskilled workers who built a majority of the canals and railroads, settling in urban areas. Many Irish went to the emerging textile mill towns of the Northeast, while others became longshoremen in the growing Atlantic and Gulf port cities. Half the Germans headed to farms, especially in the Midwest (with some to Texas), while the other half became craftsmen in urban areas.

text: Nativism took the form of political anti-Catholicism directed mostly at the Irish (as well as Germans). It became important briefly in the mid-1850s in the guise of the Know Nothing party. Most of the Catholics and German Lutherans became Democrats, and most of the other Protestants joined the new Republican Party. During the Civil War, ethnic communities supported the war and produced large numbers of soldiers on both sides. Riots broke out in New York City and other Irish and German strongholds in 1863 when a draft was instituted, particularly in light of the provision exempting those who could afford payment.

text: Based on available records, immigration totaled 8,385 in 1820, with immigration totals gradually increasing to 23,322 by the year 1830; for the 1820s decade immigration more than doubled to 143,000. Between 1831 and 1840, immigration more than quadrupled to a total of 599,000. These included about 207,000 Irish, starting to emigrate in large numbers following Britain's easing of travel restrictions, and about 152,000 Germans, 76,000 British, and 46,000 French, constituting the next largest immigrant groups of the decade.

text: Between 1841 and 1850, immigration nearly tripled again, totaling 1,713,000 immigrants, including at least 781,000 Irish, 435,000 Germans, 267,000 British, and 77,000 French. The Irish, driven by the Potato Famine (1845–1849), emigrated directly from their homeland to escape poverty and death. The failed revolutions of 1848 brought many intellectuals and activists to exile in the U.S. Bad times and poor conditions in Europe drove people out, while land, relatives, freedom, opportunity, and jobs in the US lured them in.

text:
Population and Foreign Born 1790 to 1849
Census Population, Immigrants per Decade

Census
Population
Immigrants1
Foreign Born
 %

1790
3,918,000
60,000

1800
5,236,000
60,000

1810
7,036,000
60,000

1820
10,086,000
60,000

1830
12,785,000
143,000
200,000 2
1.6%

1840
17,018,000
599,000
800,000 2
4.7%

1850
23,054,000
1,713,000
2,244,000
9.7%

1. The total number immigrating in each decade from 1790 to 1820 are estimates.
2. The number of foreign born in 1830 and 1840 decades are extrapolations.

text: Starting in 1820, some federal records, including ship passenger lists, were kept for immigration purposes, and a gradual increase in immigration was recorded; more complete immigration records provide data on immigration after 1830. Though conducted since 1790, the census of 1850 was the first in which place of birth was asked specifically. The foreign-born population in the U.S. likely reached its minimum around 1815, at approximately 100,000 or 1% of the population. By 1815, most of the immigrants who arrived before the American Revolution had died, and there had been almost no new immigration thereafter.

text: Nearly all population growth up to 1830 was by internal increase; around 98% of the population was native-born. By 1850, this shifted to about 90% native-born. The first significant Catholic immigration started in the mid-1840s, shifting the population from about 95% Protestant down to about 90% by 1850.

text: In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, concluding the Mexican War, extended U.S. citizenship to approximately 60,000 Mexican residents of the New Mexico Territory and 10,000 living in California. An additional approximate 2,500 foreign born California residents also become U.S. citizens.

text: In 1849, the California Gold Rush attracted 100,000 would-be miners from the Eastern U.S., Latin America, China, Australia, and Europe. California became a state in 1850 with a population of about 90,000.

text: 1850 to 1930[edit]

text: Demography[edit]

text: Between 1850 and 1930, about 5 million Germans migrated to the United States, peaking between 1881 and 1885 when a million Germans settled primarily in the Midwest. Between 1820 and 1930, 3.5 million British and 4.5 million Irish entered America. Before 1845 most Irish immigrants were Protestants. After 1845, Irish Catholics began arriving in large numbers, largely driven by the Great Famine.[26]

text: After 1880 larger steam-powered oceangoing ships replaced sailing ships, which resulted in lower fares and greater immigrant mobility. Meanwhile, farming improvements in Southern Europe and the Russian Empire created surplus labor. Young people between the ages of 15 to 30 were predominant among newcomers. This wave of migration, constituting the third episode in the history of U.S. immigration, may be better referred to as a flood of immigrants, as nearly 25 million Europeans made the long trip. Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, and others speaking Slavic languages made up the bulk of this migration. 2.5 to 4 million Jews were among them.

text: Destinations[edit]

text: Each group evinced a distinctive migration pattern in terms of the gender balance within the migratory pool, the permanence of their migration, their literacy rates, the balance between adults and children, and the like. But they shared one overarching characteristic: they flocked to urban destinations and made up the bulk of the U.S. industrial labor pool, making possible the emergence of such industries as steel, coal, automotive, textile, and garment production, enabling the United States to leap into the front ranks of the world's economic giants.

text: Their urban destinations, numbers, and perhaps an antipathy towards foreigners, led to the emergence of a second wave of organized xenophobia. By the 1890s, many Americans, particularly from the ranks of the well-off, white, and native-born, considered immigration to pose a serious danger to the nation's health and security. In 1893 a group formed the Immigration Restriction League, and it, along with other similarly inclined organizations, began to press Congress for severe curtailment of foreign immigration.

text: Irish and German Catholic immigration was opposed in the 1850s by the Nativist/Know Nothing movement, originating in New York in 1843 as the American Republican Party (not to be confused with the modern Republican Party). It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to American values and controlled by the Pope in Rome. Active mainly from 1854–56, it strove to curb immigration and naturalization, though its efforts met with little success. There were few prominent leaders, and the largely middle-class and Protestant membership fragmented over the issue of slavery, most often joining the Republican Party by the time of the 1860 presidential election.[27][28]

text: European immigrants joined the Union Army in large numbers, including 177,000 born in Germany and 144,000 born in Ireland.[29] Many Germans could see the parallels between slavery and serfdom in the old fatherland.[30]

text: Between 1840 and 1930, about 900,000 French Canadians left Quebec in order to immigrate to the United States and settle, mainly in New England. Considering the fact that the population of Quebec was only 892,061 in 1851, this was a massive exodus. 13.6 million Americans claimed to have French ancestry in the 1980 census. A large portion of them have ancestors who emigrated from French Canada, since immigration from France was low throughout the history of the United States. During the same period almost 4 million other Canadians immigrated to the U.S. In the New England states 12% of the population can trace its ancestry back to Quebec and 10% can trace its ancestry back to the Maritime Provinces.

text: Shortly after the U.S. Civil War, some states started to pass their own immigration laws, which prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in 1875 that immigration was a federal responsibility.[31] In 1875, the nation passed its first immigration law, the Page Act of 1875, also known as the Asian Exclusion Act, outlawing the importation of Asian contract laborers, any Asian woman who would engage in prostitution, and all people considered to be convicts in their own countries.[32]

text: In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. By excluding all Chinese laborers from entering the country, the Chinese Exclusion Act severely curtailed the number of immigrants of Chinese descent allowed into the United States for 10 years.[33] The law was renewed in 1892 and 1902. During this period, Chinese migrants illegally entered the United States through the loosely guarded U.S.-Canadian border.[34]

text: Prior to 1890, the individual states, rather than the Federal government, regulated immigration into the United States.[35] The Immigration Act of 1891 established a Commissioner of Immigration in the Treasury Department.[36] The Canadian Agreement of 1894 extended U.S. immigration restrictions to Canadian ports.

text: The Dillingham Commission was set up by Congress in 1907 to investigate the effects of immigration on the country. The Commission's 40-volume analysis of immigration during the previous three decades led it to conclude that the major source of immigration had shifted from Central, Northern, and Western Europeans to Southern Europeans and Russians. It was, however, apt to make generalizations about regional groups that were subjective and failed to differentiate between distinct cultural attributes.[37][38]

text: The 1910s marked the high point of Italian immigration to the United States. Over two million Italians immigrated in those years, with a total of 5.3 million between 1880 and 1920.[39][40] About half returned to Italy, after working an average of five years in the U.S.[41]

text: About 1.5 million Swedes and Norwegians immigrated to the United States within this period, due to opportunity in America and poverty and religious oppression in united Sweden-Norway. This accounted for around 20% of the total population of the kingdom at that time. They settled mainly in the Midwest, especially Minnesota and the Dakotas. Danes had comparably low immigration rates due to a better economy; after 1900 many Danish immigrants were Mormon converts who moved to Utah.

text: Over two million Central Europeans, mainly Catholics and Jews, immigrated between 1880 and 1924. People of Polish ancestry are the largest Central European ancestry group in the United States after Germans. Immigration of Eastern Orthodox ethnic groups was much lower.

text: Lebanese and Syrian immigrants started to settle in large numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The vast majority of the immigrants from Lebanon and Syria were Christians, but smaller numbers of Jews, Muslims, and Druze also settled. Many lived in New York City's Little Syria and in Boston. In the 1920s and 1930s, a large number of these immigrants set out West, with Detroit getting a large number of Middle Eastern immigrants, as well as many Midwestern areas where the Arabs worked as farmers.

text: From 1880 to 1924, around two million Jews moved to the United States, mostly seeking better opportunity in America and fleeing the pogroms of the Russian Empire. After 1934 Jews, along with any other above-quota immigration, were usually denied access to the United States.

text: Congress passed a literacy requirement in 1917 to curb the influx of low-skilled immigrants from entering the country.

text: Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act in 1921, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924, which was aimed at further restricting the Southern Europeans and Russians who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s. This ultimately resulted in precluding all "extra" immigration to the United States, including Jews fleeing Nazi German persecution.

text: The Immigration Act of 1924 set quotas for European immigrants so that no more than 2% of the 1890 immigrant stocks were allowed into America.

text: New Immigration[edit]

text: "New immigration" was a term from the late 1880s that came from the influx of Catholic and Jewish immigrants from Italy and Russia (areas that previously sent few immigrants).[42]

text: Nativists feared the new arrivals lacked the political, social, and occupational skills needed to successfully assimilate into American culture. This raised the issue of whether the U.S. was still a "melting pot," or if it had just become a "dumping ground," and many old-stock Americans worried about negative effects on the economy, politics, and culture.[43] A major proposal was to impose a literacy test, whereby applicants had to be able to read and write in their own language before they were admitted.[44]

text: 1930 to 2000[edit]

text: Restriction proceeded piecemeal over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but immediately after the end of World War I (1914–18) and into the early 1920s, Congress changed the nation's basic policy about immigration. The National Origins Formula of 1921 (and its final form in 1924) not only restricted the number of immigrants who might enter the United States, but also assigned slots according to quotas based on national origins. A complicated piece of legislation, it essentially gave preference to immigrants from Central, Northern and Western Europe, severely limiting the numbers from Russia and Southern Europe, and declared all potential immigrants from Asia unworthy of entry into the United States.

text: The legislation excluded the Western Hemisphere from the quota system, and the 1920s ushered in the penultimate era of U.S. immigration history. Immigrants could and did move quite freely from Mexico, the Caribbean (including Jamaica, Barbados, and Haiti), and other parts of Central and South America. This era, which reflected the application of the 1924 legislation, lasted until 1965. During those 40 years, the United States began to admit, case by case, limited numbers of refugees. Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany before World War II, Jewish Holocaust survivors after the war, non-Jewish displaced persons fleeing Communist rule in Central Europe and Russia, Hungarians seeking refuge after their failed uprising in 1956, and Cubans after the 1960 revolution managed to find haven in the United States when their plight moved the collective conscience of America, but the basic immigration law remained in place.

text: Equal Nationality Act of 1934[edit]

text: This law allowed foreign-born children of American mothers and alien fathers who had entered America before the age of 18 and had lived in America for five years to apply for American citizenship for the first time.[45] It also made the naturalization process quicker for the alien husbands of American wives.[45] This law equalized expatriation, immigration, naturalization, and repatriation between women and men.[45][46] However, it was not applied retroactively, and was modified by later laws, such as the Nationality Act of 1940.[45][47]

text: Tydings–McDuffie Act[edit]

text: In 1934, the Tydings–McDuffie Act provided independence of the Philippines on July 4, 1946. Until 1965, national origin quotas strictly limited immigration from the Philippines. In 1965, after revision of the immigration law, significant Filipino immigration began, totaling 1,728,000 by 2004.[48]

text: Postwar immigration[edit]

text: In 1945, the War Brides Act allowed foreign-born wives of U.S. citizens who had served in the U.S. Armed Forces to immigrate to the United States. In 1946, The War Brides Act was extended to include the fiancés of American soldiers. In 1946, the Luce-Celler Act extended the right to become naturalized citizens to from the newly independent nation of The Philippines and to Asian Indians. The immigration quota was set at 100 people per year.[49]

text: At the end of World War II, "regular" immigration almost immediately increased under the official national origins quota system as refugees from war torn Europe began immigrating to the U.S. After the war, there were jobs for nearly everyone who wanted one, when most women employed during the war went back into the home. From 1941 to 1950, 1,035,000 people immigrated to the U.S., including 226,000 from Germany, 139,000 from the UK, 171,000 from Canada, 60,000 from Mexico and 57,000 from Italy.[50]

text: The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 finally allowed the displaced people of World War II to start immigrating.[51] Some 200,000 Europeans and 17,000 orphans displaced by World War II were initially allowed to immigrate to the United States outside of immigration quotas. President Harry S. Truman signed the first Displaced Persons (DP) act on June 25, 1948, allowing entry for 200,000 DPs, then followed with the more accommodating second DP act on June 16, 1950, allowing entry for another 200,000. This quota, including acceptance of 55,000 Volksdeutschen, required sponsorship for all immigrants. The American program was the most notoriously bureaucratic of all the DP programs and much of the humanitarian effort was undertaken by charitable organizations, such as the Lutheran World Federation as well as other ethnic groups. Along with an additional quota of 200,000 granted in 1953 and more in succeeding years, a total of nearly 600,000 refugees were allowed into the country outside the quota system, second only to Israel's 650,000.

text: In 1950, after the start of the Korean War, the Internal Security Act barred admission of Communists, who might engage in activities "which would be prejudicial to the public interest, or would endanger the welfare or safety of the United States."

text: In 1950, the invasion of South Korea by North Korea started the Korean War and left a war-ravaged Korea behind. There was little U.S. immigration due to the national origin quotas of the immigration law. Significant Korean immigration began in 1965 after revision of the law, totaling 848,000 by 2004.

text: In 1952, the McCarran Walter Immigration Act affirmed the national-origins quota system of 1924 and limited total annual immigration to one-sixth of one percent of the population of the continental United States in 1920, or 175,455. This exempted the spouses and children of U.S. citizens and people born in the Western Hemisphere from the quota. In 1953, the Refugee Relief Act extended refugee status to non-Europeans.

text: In 1954, Operation Wetback forced the return of thousands of illegal immigrants to Mexico.[52] Between 1944 and 1954, "the decade of the wetback," the number of illegal immigrants coming from Mexico increased by 6,000 percent. It is estimated that before Operation Wetback got under way, more than a million workers had crossed the Rio Grande illegally. Cheap labor displaced native agricultural workers, and increased violation of labor laws and discrimination encouraged criminality, disease, and illiteracy. According to a study conducted in 1950 by the President's Commission on Migratory Labor in Texas, the Rio Grande Valley cotton growers were paying approximately half of the wages paid elsewhere in Texas. The United States Border Patrol aided by municipal, county, state, federal authorities, and the military, began a quasi-military operation of the search and seizure of all illegal immigrants. Fanning out from the lower Rio Grande Valley, Operation Wetback moved Northward. Initially, illegal immigrants were repatriated through Presidio because the Mexican city across the border, Ojinaga, had rail connections to the interior of Mexico by which workers could be quickly moved on to Durango. The forces used by the government were relatively small, perhaps no more than 700 men, but were augmented by border patrol officials who hoped to scare illegal workers into fleeing back to Mexico. Ships became a preferred mode of transport because they carried illegal workers farther from the border than buses, trucks, or trains. It is difficult to estimate the number of illegal immigrants that left due to the operation—most voluntarily. The INS claimed as many as 1,300,000, though the number officially apprehended did not come anywhere near this total. The program was ultimately abandoned due to questions surrounding the ethics of its implementation. Citizens of Mexican descent complained of police stopping all "Mexican looking" people and utilizing extreme "police-state" methods including deportation of American-born children who were citizens by law.[53]

text: The failed 1956 Hungarian Revolution, before being crushed by the Soviets, forged a temporary hole in the Iron Curtain that allowed a burst of refugees to escape, bringing in 245,000 new Hungarian families by 1960. From 1950 to 1960, the U.S. had 2,515,000 new immigrants with 477,000 arriving from Germany, 185,000 from Italy, 52,000 new arrivals from the Netherlands, 203,000 from the UK, 46,000 from Japan, 300,000 from Mexico, and 377,000 from Canada.

text: The 1959 Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro drove the upper and middle classes to exile, and 409,000 families immigrated to the U.S. by 1970.[54] This was facilitated by the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which gave permanent resident status to Cubans physically present in the United States for one year if they entered after January 1, 1959.

text: Hart-Celler Act[edit]

text: This all changed with passage of the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, a by-product of the civil rights revolution and a jewel in the crown of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. The measure had not been intended to stimulate immigration from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere in the developing world. Rather, by doing away with the racially based quota system, its authors had expected that immigrants would come from "traditional" societies such as Italy, Greece, and Portugal, places that labored under very small quotas in the 1924 law. The law replaced the quotas with preferential categories based on family relationships and job skills, giving particular preference to potential immigrants with relatives in the United States and with occupations deemed critical by the U.S. Department of Labor. After 1970, however, following an initial influx from European countries, immigrants from places like Korea, China, India, the Philippines, and Pakistan, as well as countries in Africa became more common.

text: In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed, creating, for the first time, penalties for employers who hired illegal immigrants. IRCA, as proposed in Congress, was projected to give amnesty to about 1,000,000 workers in the country illegally. In practice, amnesty for about 3,000,000 immigrants already in the United States was granted. Most were from Mexico. Legal Mexican immigrant family numbers were 2,198,000 in 1980, 4,289,000 in 1990 (includes IRCA), and 7,841,000 in 2000. Adding another 12,000,000 illegal immigrants of which about 80% are thought to be Mexicans would bring the Mexican family total to over 16,000,000—about 16% of the Mexican population.[citation needed]

text: Immigration summary since 1830[edit]

text: The top ten birth countries of the foreign born population since 1830, according to the U.S. Census, are shown below. Blank entries mean that the country did not make it into the top ten for that census, not that there is no data from that census. The 1830 numbers are from immigration statistics as listed in the 2004 Year Book of Immigration Statistics.[55]

text: • The 1830 numbers list un-naturalized foreign citizens and does not include naturalized foreign born. The 1850 census is the first census that asks for place of birth. The historical census data can be found online in the Virginia Library Geostat Center [56] Population numbers are in thousands.

text:
Country/Year
1830•
1850
1880
1900
1930
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000

Austria

305
214

Bohemia

85

Canada
2
148
717
1,180
1,310
953
812
843
745
678

China

104

1,391

Cuba

439
608
737
952

Czechoslovakia

492

Dominican Republic

692

El Salvador

765

France
9
54
107

Germany
8
584
1,967
2,663
1,609
990
833
849
712

Hungary

245

India

2,000

Ireland
54
962
1,855
1,615
745
339

Italy

484
1,790
1,257
1,009
832
581

Korea

290
568
701

Mexico
11
13

641
576
760
2,199
4,298
7,841

Netherlands
1
10

Norway

13
182
336

Pakistan

724

Philippines

501
913
1,222

Poland

1,269
748
548
418

Russia/Soviet Union

424
1,154
691
463
406

Sweden

194
582
595

Switzerland
3
13
89

United Kingdom
27
379
918
1,168
1,403
833
686
669
640

Vietnam

543
863

Total Foreign Born
108*
2,244
6,679
10,341
14,204
10,347
9,619
14,079
19,763
31,100

% Foreign Born
0.8%*
9.7%
13.3%
13.6%
11.6%
5.8%
4.7%
6.2%
7.9%
11.1%

Native Born
12,677
20,947
43,476
65,653
108,571
168,978
193,591
212,466
228,946
250,321

% Native Born
99.2%
90.3%
86.7%
86.4%
88.4%
94.2%
95.3%
94%
92.1%
88.9%

Total Population
12,785
23,191
50,155
75,994
122,775
179,325
203,210
226,545
248,709
281,421

1830
1850
1880
1900
1930
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000

text:
Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status Fiscal Years 1820 to 2010[57]

Year

Year

Year

1820
8,385
1885
395,346
1950
249,187

1825
10,199
1890
455,302
1955
237,790

1830
23,322
1895
258,536
1960
265,398

1835
45,374
1900
448,572
1965
296,697

1840
84,066
1905
1,026,499
1970
373,326

1845
114,371
1910
1,041,570
1975
385,378

1850
369,980
1915
326,700
1980
524,295

1855
200,877
1920
430,001
1985
568,149

1860
153,640
1925
294,314
1990
1,535,872

1865
248,120
1930
241,700
1995
720,177

1870
387,203
1935
34,956
2000
841,002

1875
227,498
1940
70,756
2005
1,122,257

1880
457,257
1945
38,119
2010
1,042,625

text: Historical foreign-born population by state[edit]

text:
Foreign-Born Population By U.S. State As a % of the Total Population (1850-2010)[58][59]

State/Territory
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010

 United States of America
9.7%
13.2%
14.4%
13.3%
14.8%
13.6%
14.7%
13.2%
11.6%
8.8%
6.9%
5.4%
4.7%
6.2%
7.9%
11.1%
12.9%

 Alabama
1.0%
1.3%
1.0%
0.8%
1.0%
0.8%
0.9%
0.8%
0.6%
0.4%
0.4%
0.5%
0.5%
1.0%
1.1%
2.0%
3.5%

 Alaska

3.6%
2.6%
4.0%
4.5%
5.9%
6.9%

 Arizona

60.1%
39.7%
31.5%
19.7%
23.9%
24.1%
15.1%
7.8%
6.3%
5.4%
4.3%
6.0%
7.6%
12.8%
13.4%

 Arkansas
0.7%
0.8%
1.0%
1.3%
1.3%
1.1%
1.1%
0.8%
0.6%
0.4%
0.5%
0.4%
0.4%
1.0%
1.1%
2.8%
4.5%

 California
23.5%
38.6%
37.5%
33.9%
30.3%
24.7%
24.7%
22.1%
18.9%
13.4%
10.0%
8.5%
8.8%
15.1%
21.7%
26.2%
27.2%

 Colorado

7.8%
16.6%
20.5%
20.4%
16.9%
16.2%
12.7%
9.6%
6.4%
4.6%
3.4%
2.7%
3.9%
4.3%
8.6%
9.8%

 Connecticut
10.4%
17.5%
21.1%
20.9%
24.6%
26.2%
29.6%
27.4%
23.9%
19.3%
14.8%
10.9%
8.6%
8.6%
8.5%
10.9%
13.6%

 Delaware
5.7%
8.2%
7.3%
6.5%
7.8%
7.5%
8.6%
8.9%
7.1%
5.6%
4.1%
3.3%
2.9%
3.2%
3.3%
5.7%
8.0%

 District of Columbia
9.5%
16.6%
12.3%
9.6%
8.1%
7.2%
7.5%
6.7%
6.3%
5.3%
5.3%
5.1%
4.4%
6.4%
9.7%
12.9%
13.5%

 Florida
3.2%
2.4%
2.6%
3.7%
5.9%
4.5%
5.4%
5.6%
4.8%
4.1%
4.7%
5.5%
8.0%
10.9%
12.9%
16.7%
19.4%

 Georgia
0.7%
1.1%
0.9%
0.7%
0.7%
0.6%
0.6%
0.6%
0.5%
0.4%
0.5%
0.6%
0.7%
1.7%
2.7%
7.1%
9.7%

 Hawaii

10.9%
9.8%
14.2%
14.7%
17.5%
18.2%

 Idaho

52.6%
30.6%
20.7%
15.2%
13.1%
9.4%
7.3%
4.7%
3.4%
2.3%
1.8%
2.5%
2.9%
5.0%
5.5%

 Illinois
13.1%
19.0%
20.3%
19.0%
22.0%
20.1%
21.4%
18.7%
16.3%
12.3%
9.1%
6.8%
5.7%
7.2%
8.3%
12.3%
13.7%

 Indiana
5.6%
8.8%
8.4%
7.3%
6.7%
5.6%
5.9%
5.2%
4.4%
3.2%
2.5%
2.0%
1.6%
1.9%
1.7%
3.1%
4.6%

 Iowa
10.9%
15.7%
17.1%
16.1%
17.0%
13.7%
12.3%
9.4%
6.8%
4.6%
3.2%
2.0%
1.4%
1.6%
1.6%
3.1%
4.6%

 Kansas

11.8%
13.3%
11.1%
10.4%
8.6%
8.0%
6.3%
4.3%
2.9%
2.0%
1.5%
1.2%
2.0%
2.5%
5.0%
6.5%

 Kentucky
3.2%
5.2%
4.8%
3.6%
3.2%
2.3%
1.8%
1.3%
0.8%
0.6%
0.5%
0.6%
0.5%
0.9%
0.9%
2.0%
3.2%

 Louisiana
13.2%
11.4%
8.5%
5.8%
4.4%
3.8%
3.2%
2.6%
1.8%
1.2%
1.1%
0.9%
1.1%
2.0%
2.1%
2.6%
3.8%

 Maine
5.5%
6.0%
7.8%
9.1%
11.9%
13.4%
14.9%
14.0%
12.6%
9.9%
8.2%
6.2%
4.3%
3.9%
3.0%
2.9%
3.4%

 Maryland
8.8%
11.3%
10.7%
8.9%
9.0%
7.9%
8.1%
7.1%
5.9%
4.5%
3.7%
3.0%
3.2%
4.6%
6.6%
9.8%
13.9%

 Massachusetts
16.5%
21.1%
24.2%
24.9%
29.4%
30.2%
31.5%
28.3%
25.1%
19.9%
15.4%
11.2%
8.7%
8.7%
9.5%
12.2%
15.0%

 Michigan
13.8%
19.9%
22.6%
23.7%
26.0%
22.4%
21.3%
19.9%
17.6%
13.1%
9.5%
6.8%
4.8%
4.5%
3.8%
5.3%
6.0%

 Minnesota
32.5%
34.1%
36.5%
34.3%
35.9%
28.9%
26.2%
20.4%
15.2%
10.6%
7.1%
4.2%
2.6%
2.6%
2.6%
5.3%
7.1%

 Mississippi
0.8%
1.1%
1.4%
0.8%
0.6%
0.5%
0.5%
0.5%
0.4%
0.3%
0.4%
0.4%
0.4%
0.9%
0.8%
1.4%
2.1%

 Missouri
11.2%
13.6%
12.9%
9.8%
8.8%
7.0%
7.0%
5.5%
4.2%
3.0%
2.3%
1.8%
1.4%
1.7%
1.6%
2.7%
3.9%

 Montana

38.7%
29.4%
32.6%
27.6%
25.2%
17.4%
14.1%
10.1%
7.4%
4.5%
2.8%
2.3%
1.7%
1.8%
2.0%

 Nebraska

22.0%
25.0%
21.5%
19.1%
16.6%
14.8%
11.6%
8.7%
6.2%
4.4%
2.9%
1.9%
2.0%
1.8%
4.4%
6.1%

 Nevada

30.1%
44.2%
41.2%
32.1%
23.8%
24.1%
20.7%
16.6%
10.0%
6.7%
4.6%
3.7%
6.7%
8.7%
15.8%
18.8%

 New Hampshire
4.5%
6.4%
9.3%
13.3%
19.2%
21.4%
22.5%
20.6%
17.8%
13.9%
10.9%
7.4%
5.0%
4.4%
3.7%
4.4%
5.3%

 New Jersey
12.2%
18.3%
20.9%
19.6%
22.8%
22.9%
26.0%
23.5%
21.0%
16.8%
13.2%
10.1%
8.9%
10.3%
12.5%
17.5%
21.0%

 New Mexico
3.5%
7.2%
6.1%
6.7%
7.3%
7.0%
7.1%
8.3%
5.7%
2.9%
2.6%
2.3%
2.2%
4.0%
5.3%
8.2%
9.9%

 New York
21.2%
25.8%
26.0%
23.8%
26.2%
26.1%
30.2%
27.2%
25.9%
21.6%
17.4%
13.6%
11.6%
13.6%
15.9%
20.4%
22.2%

 North Carolina
0.3%
0.3%
0.3%
0.3%
0.2%
0.2%
0.3%
0.3%
0.3%
0.3%
0.4%
0.5%
0.6%
1.3%
1.7%
5.3%
7.5%

 North Dakota

44.6%
35.4%
27.1%
20.4%
15.5%
11.6%
7.8%
4.7%
3.0%
2.3%
1.5%
1.9%
2.5%

 Ohio
11.0%
14.0%
14.0%
12.3%
12.5%
11.0%
12.6%
11.8%
9.8%
7.5%
5.6%
4.1%
3.0%
2.8%
2.4%
3.0%
4.1%

 Oklahoma

4.4%
2.6%
2.4%
2.0%
1.3%
0.9%
0.8%
0.9%
0.8%
1.9%
2.1%
3.8%
5.5%

 Oregon
7.7%
9.8%
12.8%
17.5%
18.3%
15.9%
16.8%
13.7%
11.6%
8.3%
5.6%
4.0%
3.2%
4.1%
4.9%
8.5%
9.8%

 Pennsylvania
13.1%
14.8%
15.5%
13.7%
16.1%
15.6%
18.8%
16.0%
12.9%
9.9%
7.5%
5.3%
3.8%
3.4%
3.1%
4.1%
5.8%

 Rhode Island
16.2%
21.4%
25.5%
26.8%
30.8%
31.4%
33.0%
29.0%
25.0%
19.5%
14.4%
10.0%
7.8%
8.9%
9.5%
11.4%
12.8%

 South Carolina
1.3%
1.4%
1.1%
0.8%
0.5%
0.4%
0.4%
0.4%
0.3%
0.3%
0.3%
0.5%
0.6%
1.5%
1.4%
2.9%
4.7%

 South Dakota

36.7%
34.0%
38.3%
27.7%
22.0%
17.3%
13.0%
9.5%
6.9%
4.7%
2.7%
1.6%
1.4%
1.1%
1.8%
2.7%

 Tennessee
0.6%
1.9%
1.5%
1.1%
1.1%
0.9%
0.9%
0.7%
0.5%
0.4%
0.4%
0.4%
0.5%
1.1%
1.2%
2.8%
4.5%

 Texas
8.3%
7.2%
7.6%
7.2%
6.8%
5.9%
6.2%
7.8%
6.2%
3.7%
3.6%
3.1%
2.8%
6.0%
9.0%
13.9%
16.4%

 Utah
18.0%
31.7%
35.4%
30.6%
25.5%
19.4%
17.6%
13.2%
9.5%
6.0%
4.5%
3.6%
2.8%
3.5%
3.4%
7.1%
8.0%

 Vermont
10.7%
10.4%
14.3%
12.3%
13.3%
13.0%
14.0%
12.6%
12.0%
8.8%
7.6%
6.0%
4.2%
4.1%
3.1%
3.8%
4.4%

 Virginia
1.6%
2.2%
1.1%
1.0%
1.1%
1.0%
1.3%
1.4%
1.0%
0.9%
1.1%
1.2%
1.6%
3.3%
5.0%
8.1%
11.4%

 Washington

27.1%
21.0%
21.0%
25.8%
21.5%
22.4%
19.6%
16.3%
12.1%
8.3%
6.3%
4.6%
5.8%
6.6%
10.4%
13.1%

 West Virginia

3.9%
3.0%
2.5%
2.3%
4.7%
4.2%
3.0%
2.2%
1.7%
1.3%
1.0%
1.1%
0.9%
1.1%
1.2%

 Wisconsin
36.2%
35.7%
34.6%
30.8%
30.8%
24.9%
22.0%
17.5%
13.2%
9.2%
6.3%
4.3%
3.0%
2.7%
2.5%
3.6%
4.5%

 Wyoming

38.5%
28.1%
24.6%
18.8%
19.9%
13.7%
10.3%
6.8%
4.6%
2.9%
2.1%
2.0%
1.7%
2.3%
2.8%


document_title: Uriah Heep (band)

question_text: where did the name uriah heep come from

question_tokens: where did the name uriah heep come from

root

text: Uriah Heep (band)

text: History[edit]

text: The band's origins go back to 1967 when 19-year-old guitarist Mick Box formed a band in Brentwood called Hogwash, which began playing in local clubs and pubs. When the band's singer left, drummer Roger Penlington suggested his cousin David Garrick (who knew the band) as a replacement. Box and Garrick instantly formed a songwriting partnership and, having higher musical aspirations than their colleagues, decided to give up their day jobs and go professional. They set up a new band called Spice; it was then that David Garrick changed his surname to Byron. Drummer Alex Napier (born 1947 in Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland) joined, having answered a music paper ad; bassist Paul Newton of the Gods completed the line-up.[6]

tag: p

text: From the very beginning, Spice avoided playing covers and, according to Box, always strove "...to do something original." Managed initially by Newton's father, the band climbed their way up to The Marquee level, then got signed by Gerry Bron (the Hit Record Productions Ltd.'s boss) who saw the band at the Blues Loft club in High Wycombe. "I thought they were a band I could develop and I took them on that basis," remembered Bron later. He became the band's manager and signed them to Vertigo Records, the newly formed Philips label.[7] The four-piece found themselves booked into the Lansdowne Studios in London, still under the name of Spice. Then the name was changed to that of the well-known character from David Copperfield, Uriah Heep (for, according to biographer Kirk Blows, "Dickens' name being everywhere around Christmas '69 due to it being the hundredth anniversary of his death"). According to Dave Ling's 2001 autobiography of the band, Wizards and Demons, The Uriah Heep Story, though the "Uriah Heep" moniker was chosen in December 1969, the band continued to play gigs as "Spice" until Ken Hensley joined in February 1970. Uriah Heep then decided to widen the sound. "We'd actually recorded half the first album when we decided that keyboards would be good for our sound. I was a big Vanilla Fudge fan, with their Hammond organ and searing guitar on top, and we had David's high vibrato vocals anyway so that's how we decided to shape it," Box recalled. Gerry Bron brought in session player Colin Wood, followed by Ken Hensley, a former colleague of Newton in the Gods, who was then playing guitar in Toe Fat. "I saw a lot of potential in the group to do something very different," remembered Hensley.[6]

text: Their 1970 debut album, …Very 'Eavy …Very 'Umble (released as Uriah Heep in the United States), introduced Hensley's heavy organ and guitar-driven sound, with David Byron's theatrical, dynamic vocals soaring above thunderous sonic backgrounds, although acoustic and jazz elements also featured in the mix. The album's title references the signature phrase of the Dickens character Uriah Heep ("very 'umble"). Hensley had little to contribute to the debut: Box and Byron wrote most of the material, including "Gypsy", in many ways (according to Blows) "...a marriage of contrasts" that, in time, became their trademark. In a 1989 interview, Mick Box recalled, "The funny thing was we wrote it at the Hanwell Community Centre, and Deep Purple were rehearsing in the room next door to us. You can imagine the kind of racket we were both making between us."[6] Three quarters into the recording of the album, Alex Napier was replaced by Nigel Olsson, recommended to Byron by Elton John. The debut was not popular with rock critics (especially in the USA where Rolling Stone reviewer Melissa Mills infamously promised to commit suicide "if this band makes it") but in retrospect the attitude towards it changed. "Those unfamiliar with Uriah Heep may want to try out Demons and Wizards or a compilation first, but anyone with a serious interest in Uriah Heep or the roots of heavy metal will find plenty to like on ...Very 'eavy ...Very 'umble," advised critic Donald A. Guarisco.[8] In the course of the album's making the writing relationship between Box, Byron and Hensley was beginning to develop. "It was very quick, because we were all into the same things. It was like it was meant to be, there was that kind of chemistry," Mick Box recalled.[9]

text: When Nigel Olsson returned to Elton John’s group, Keith Baker took his place.[10] The band's second album, Salisbury (February 1971), was more squarely in the progressive rock genre, with its 16-minute title track featuring a 24-piece orchestra.[11] One of the album's tracks, Lady in Black, described as, "...a stylishly arranged tune that builds from a folk-styled acoustic tune into a throbbing rocker full of ghostly harmonies and crunching guitar riffs,"[11] became a hit in Germany upon its re-release in 1977 (earning the band the Radio Luxemburg Lion award). Produced by Gerry Bron, the second album went a long way to (according to AllMusic) perfect Uriah Heep's "blend of heavy metal power and prog rock complexity"[11] and was also significant for Ken Hensley's instant rise to the position of main songwriter. Soon after Salisbury's release Keith Baker left the band[12] and was replaced by Iain Clark (from another Vertigo band Cressida). With him the band made their first US tour in the spring of 1971, supporting Three Dog Night and Steppenwolf.[13]

text: By this time, Gerry Bron's deal with Philips/Vertigo was over, so he set up his own label, Bronze Records. The third album was recorded in the summer months of 1971, during the band's three visits to Lansdowne. "It was the point in time when the band really found a solid musical direction," said Bron later.[13] The third album, Look at Yourself, released in October 1971, marked the solidification of disparate ideas that had been a prominent feature of Salisbury and presented the unified sound and direction. Among the stand-outs were the title track, "Tears In My Eyes" and "July Morning", an epic many Heep fans regard as equal to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and Deep Purple's "Child in Time". "I think that 'July Morning' is one of the best examples of the way the band was developing at that point in time. It introduced a lot of dynamics, a lot of light and shade into our sound," Ken Hensley said.[13] The album peaked at No. 39 in the UK.

text: By the end of 1971 it became clear, according to Hensley, that he, Byron and Box had become the tightly knit nucleus of the band. Feeling marginalised and having recently been badly shaken up when he was involved in an accident in Germany in one of the band's cars, first Newton left, in November of '71, and was briefly replaced by Mark Clarke. Newton recalled in a 2000 interview on Uriah Heep's website his departure: "Well, as you know, my father managed the band in the early days, with the Gods and Spice. He bought a lot of the gear and so on. When we became Uriah Heep and Ken joined the band – and Ken is the first to admit it – he had very definite ideas about what he wanted to do in a band. I suppose in some ways it was like the band was a vehicle which Ken needed and used to put his own ideas together. And there's nothing wrong with that as such. I mean, let's face it, the fact that what we did was successful was great for me too. But after a while you're bound to get some in-fighting in a situation like that. There were other problems too, because Gerry Bron was now the manager and my father was trying to get back some money from him - get some of his money back on the equipment and so on. There was a lot of unhappiness on all sorts of levels and everybody was unhappy in a lot of ways. I actually wanted to leave the band for quite a while before I actually left but I didn't. Anyway, with the heavy work schedules and the pressures and so on, I ended up collapsing on stage one night and the other members of the band decided I should go. It was funny because I didn't want to go and there was a lot of animosity but at the same time it was a tremendous relief".[13]

text: During that same November, Iain Clark was replaced by Lee Kerslake, once of the Gods.[14] New Zealander Gary Thain, a then member of Keef Hartley Band, joined Uriah Heep as a permanent member in February 1972 halfway through another American tour, replacing Mark Clarke who was exhausted and nearing a mental breakdown. "Gary just had a style about him, it was incredible because every bass player in the world that I've ever known has always loved his style, with those melodic bass lines," Box later said. Thus the "classic" Uriah Heep formed and, according to biographer K. Blows, "Everything just clicked into place."

text: The result of this newly found chemistry was the Demons and Wizards album, which reached No. 20 in the UK and No. 23 in the USA in June 1972. While the title of it and Roger Dean's sleeve both suggested that the band was romantically working medieval myth into their songs—and surely songs like "Rainbow Demon" and "The Wizard" (co-written by Mark Clarke, during his short stay) did have thematic links with fantasy world—a more straightforward,[14] hard-rocking approach was also apparent.[15] To discard any possible insinuations concerning any kind of concept behind it, Hensley's note on the sleeve declared the album was "...just a collection of our songs that we had a good time recording." Both critics and the band's aficionados hold the album in high regard,[15] which, according to AllMusic, "...solidified Uriah Heep's reputation as a master of gothic-inflected heavy metal."[16] Ken Hensley remembered:

text: "The band was really focused at that time. We all wanted the same thing, were all willing to make the same sacrifices to achieve it and we were all very committed. It was the first album to feature that line-up and there was a magic in that combination of people that created so much energy and enthusiasm."[14]

text: Two singles were released from the album: "The Wizard" and "Easy Livin' ", the second (a defiant rocker, according to Blows, "...tailor-made for Byron's extrovert showmanship") peaked at No. 39 on the Billboard Hot 100.[14] Six months later, in November 1972, Uriah Heep's fifth studio album The Magician's Birthday (#28 UK, No. 31 USA)[1] came out, with "Sweet Lorraine" released as an American single and the title track (a multi-part fantasy epic featuring Hensley–Byron vocal duel and Box's extensive guitar solo in the middle) being the album's highlight. "Uriah Heep used to have an image, now they have personality," wrote Melody Maker in 1973.[14] A lot stemmed from the flamboyant Byron. "David was the communication point, the focal point of the whole group's stage presentation. He had so much charisma, so much ability," admitted Hensley many years later. But Hensley too developed into a sophisticated instrumentalist and stage persona, whose writing and keyboard flair ignited the rest of the band.[14]

text: A lavishly packaged (an eight-page booklet plus) double album Uriah Heep Live followed, recorded at the Birmingham Town Hall in January 1973. Having completed another Japanese tour, the band (due to tax problems) went to record to Chateau d'Herouville in France. It was there that the solid, but rather mainstream-sounding, Sweet Freedom (#18 UK, No. 33 USA) was created with "Stealin'" released as a single. Having gained worldwide recognition, the band quit the fantasy world in lyrics and made an obvious stab at versatility by adding funk ("Dreamer") and an acoustic number along the lines of contemporary singer/songwriters ("Circus") elements to the palette.[17] Ken Hensley meanwhile had been gradually recording his own, mellower material; his solo debut Proud Words on a Dusty Shelf was released the same year.

text: Wonderworld (June 1974), recorded in Munich's Musicland Studios in January, disappointed fans and band members alike. "Recording abroad disrupted the band's normal method of operation and that had a big negative effect on the group. Our communication was falling apart, we were arguing over stuff like royalties and we were getting involved in matters beyond music," Hensley said. Box remembered weeks spent in the studio as "dramatic" for all the wrong reasons. "David was drunk for most of the time, Kenny was having an emotional time of it and I was constantly trying to help them so it was difficult for me too. There was also a little bit of friction because (artistic) Kenny didn't like all the attention that (flamboyant) David was getting." Gary Thain was in even more serious trouble. According to Blows, "A strenuous touring schedule, compounded by the bassist's heavy drug dependency (inherent even before joining Heep) was taking its toll, though matters came to a head while on tour during September," when the bassist received a serious electric shock on stage in Dallas during a gig at Southern Methodist University’s Moody Coliseum on 15 September 1974. The rest of the US tour was then canceled and their UK dates rescheduled to October. Soon after going out of hospital, Thain, in Sounds, openly accused manager Gerry Bron of having turned Uriah Heep into a mere "financial thing" and was fired two months after the group's final gig of 1974 at New Theatre in Oxford, New Zealand on December 14. A year later, on 8 December 1975, Gary Thain was found dead in his Norwood Green home, having overdosed on heroin.[14]

text: John Wetton (ex-Family and King Crimson) joined the band in March 1975 and with him Return to Fantasy (June 1975) was recorded; representing a revitalised Uriah Heep, it soared up to No. 7 in the UK. "It was a relief to have someone solid and reliable, and he had a load of ideas too," Box remembered.[18] The following "Year-long world tour" (according to a headline in NME), was marred by a new accident. Mick Box fell off stage in Louisville, Kentucky on 2 August 1975, breaking the radial bone in his right arm (but he persevered through both the set and the tour, receiving three injections a night). On 26 March 1976 at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul, Minnesota, John Wetton had an accident of his own when he (like his predecessor, Thain) received an electric shock on stage.[18] In November 1975 The Best of Uriah Heep compilation was released, preceded by two solo albums: Byron's debut Take No Prisoners and Hensley's second, Eager to Please.

text: High and Mighty followed in June 1976. It was considered lightweight; even Box stated: "less of the 'eavy and more of the 'umble."[18] The matter of production here became the point of major contention. With Bron committed to non-musical projects (including his air-taxi service) the band decided to produce the album themselves. The manager later insisted the result was Heep's worst album, while Hensley accused the manager of deliberately ignoring the band's interests.[18] The album, though, was launched in the most lavish manner (with journalists and business people being flown off to the top of a Swiss mountain for a reception). However, it was not matched with the quality of live concerts, which were increasingly chaotic due to Byron's inconsistency on stage.[18] "He'd always got drunk after the show but it had never got to the point where it would jeopardize the show itself. The performance had always been first and foremost with David. It was when the show started to come second that the problems began," Hensley remembered. "The distance between David and the rest had grown to unworkable proportions," according to Blows. "It's a tragedy to say it but David was one of those classic people who could not face up to the fact that things were wrong and he looked for solace in a bottle," commented Bron. In July 1976, after the final show of a Spanish tour, Byron was sacked. Soon bassist John Wetton announced he was quitting. Obviously he was not comfortable in the band, nor were his colleagues with him. Hensley later explained, "When he joined, we thought that we could replace a great bass player (Thain) with another great bass player, but we ignored the personality factor, which is crucial. It was like grafting on a new piece of skin but it just didn't work—the body rejected it."[18]

text: Uriah Heep recruited bassist Trevor Bolder (ex-David Bowie, Mick Ronson) and, after having auditioned David Coverdale (Deep Purple, Whitesnake), Ian Hunter and Gary Holton (Heavy Metal Kids), brought in John Lawton, formerly of Lucifer's Friend and the Les Humphries Singers, with whom they turned away from fantasy-oriented lyrics and multi-part compositions back towards a more straightforward hard rock sound typical of the era. Box later said, "Image-wise he wasn't quite what we were looking for, but his pipes were perfect and so we went for the music end of it." Hensley agreed: "He had a voice that I thought would give a new dimension."

text: Firefly was released in February 1977, displaying "renewed effervescence and energy in unveiling what was clearly a new beginning for Heep" (per. K. Blows), "a new vigour and confidence" (according to a Record Mirror review)[19] and also the new singer’s abilities: the latter (according to AllMusic), although lacking the multi-octave range of David Byron, "…boasted an impressive and emotionally rich hard rock voice that instantly jelled with the Uriah Heep sound."[20] The band then toured the USA supporting Kiss. Paul Stanley later recalled, "They were incredibly professional, and so consistent that their worst nights were excellent and their best were tremendous."[19]

text: Innocent Victim, released in November 1977, "had a slight edge on Firefly" according to Box, but still in retrospect this "...blend of sharp, short rockers and pop-friendly ballads" looked like "an attempt to court the American AOR market."[21] The single "Free Me" (whose "acoustic style and accent on harmonies brought the group dangerously close to Eagles territory," according to AllMusic)[21] became an international hit (making it to No. 1 in New Zealand). In Germany the album sold over a million copies and became Uriah Heep's most successful, which coincided with the success of the re-released "Lady in Black." For some time during this period, there were three Uriah Heep singles sitting together in the German Top 20, these being "Wise Man" (from Firefly), "Lady in Black" and "Free Me".[19]

text: In the end of 1978, Fallen Angel came out, having completed a hat-trick of studio albums to feature a consistent lineup (only the second time in their career that they had done so). "Too poppy" for Mick Box’s liking (but still, "too eccentric to fit the bill of an AOR record," according to Allmusic),[22] it was well received at the time (Sounds gave it 4 stars) but failed to chart. Meanwhile, the relative stability of the Lawton period belied the behind the scenes unrest having to do with Ken Hensley's earning much more than his colleagues. "Everything he wrote, he had to use… And if you insist in using everything you end up with substandard albums," disgruntled Box opined. The major rift, though, developed between Hensley and Lawton. As K. Blows writes, "the combination of constant friction between the two (resulting in the nearest thing to violence the group had seen) and the constant presence of Lawton's wife on the road finally led to the vocalist getting the chop, shortly after playing the Bilzen Festival in Belgium in August 1979."[19]

text: Ex-Lone Star John Sloman was brought in, a younger singer who played keyboards and guitar and was, in the words of Box, "...an all rounder." But almost instantly, Lee Kerslake departed, after a row with Bron, whom the drummer accused of favouritism towards Hensley's material. Several tracks of the next album had to be re-recorded with a new drummer, Chris Slade (of the Manfred Mann's Earth Band). Conquest LP was released in February 1980 and received 5 stars from Record Mirror, but, according to Box, "was a difficult album to record" and represented "a confused Heep," even "a mess" (in the words of Trevor Bolder).[23] The band went on the 10th Anniversary Tour with Girlschool as support and attracted respectable crowds. Hensley was very unhappy, primarily with Sloman, and he explained why:

text: The band had chosen John and I had opposed that decision. He was a good musician and he looked great but I thought he had little going for him vocally. The way that he interpreted songs were totally different to the way I had written them. I could understand wanting to move on but this was like the difference between Black Sabbath and Gino Vannelli. We weren't addressing our basic problems, in that we weren't re-establishing our musical direction and John definitely wasn't helping us to do that.[23]

text: A meeting at the manager’s office concerning the songwriting dissent was the last straw and, in September 1980, Hensley quit. Gregg Dechert, a Canadian who had worked with Sloman in Pulsar, came in and the band went on a 23-date tour of the UK. After that Sloman left, citing musical differences for a reason.[24] He would later go on to work with UFO, Gary Moore and Robert Palmer. Hensley's acrimonious departure left the group in a state of collapse. Box and Bolder visited David Byron with attractive propositions. "We couldn't believe it when he said he didn't want to know," the guitarist remembered. Bolder, who by that time, "...had had enough of Gerry Bron and the management," decided to join Wishbone Ash. When Dechert left, Uriah Heep were down to just Mick Box with the name and contract.[25] The Melody Maker headline "Heap of Heep" reflected the press's attitude towards the band's possible future.

text: Box remembered, "I locked myself in my flat for two days and drank myself senseless in complete self-pity. But I somehow managed to pull myself together and consider my options."[25] First he rang Lee Kerslake (who in the meanwhile had co-founded Blizzard of Ozz with Ozzy Osbourne) and the drummer brought along with him bassist Bob Daisley. Then John Sinclair came in whom Box knew from the times he was a member of Heavy Metal Kids and who currently played with a Los Angeles band called Lion. The band’s new vocalist became Peter Goalby of Trapeze fame. The latter had once auditioned for Uriah Heep and failed, ironically Hensley being the only band member who had supported him as a choice. "With us all contributing to the writing we forged our new direction," Box recalled.[25]

text: Produced by Ashley Howe, the Abominog album (according to Blows) was, "…important…in the way it pulled Heep out of the Seventies and thrust them into the Eighties with determination muscle," even if sounded a bit too American.[26] Released in March 1982 (and preceded in February by the Abominog Junior EP), it won favour with the critics. Sounds gave it a five star review, the newly established rock magazine Kerrang! declared it "the most mature and perhaps best album of their career" and in retrospect it is still seen as "one of the most consistent and engaging albums in the group's lengthy catalog."[27] The album did relatively well in the American charts (#56) after its US release in September 1982 and the band successfully performed at the Castle Donington Monsters of Rock event a few weeks prior to this, on August 21.

text: Head First (May 1983), produced again by Ashley Howe (who, according to Goalby, became "like the sixth member of the band"),[26] followed much in the same vein, pursuing (according to AllMusic) "...a similar combination of heavy metal firepower and AOR sleekness."[28] Not long before its release Daisley left the band to return to Ozzy Osbourne and Trevor Bolder re-joined Uriah Heep.[26] Both albums, Abominog and Head First, updated the band's sound and generated a brief, newfound interest in Uriah Heep among younger heavy metal fans.

text: Uriah Heep toured the US supporting Rush, Judas Priest and Def Leppard, whose vocalist Joe Elliot remembered: "They were the best band that we've ever toured with either as a headline or support, because there was no ego, no pretentious kind of stuff. They were good in as much that we learnt a lot from them." By this time Gerry Bron was Uriah Heep manager no longer (they were looked after by Neil Warnock in Europe and Blue Oyster Cult's management team in the US) and then, finally, Bronze Records collapsed under the weight of debts, which, according to Box, "...cost Heep a lot of money."[29] Massive Asian and South American tours followed before the band returned to the studio with producer Tony Platt and a new deal with CBS's Portrait label secured by new manager Harry Maloney. Meanwhile, David Byron died of a heart attack and liver disease on 28 February 1985 at the age of 38.[18]

text: Equator (March 1985) sold poorly, due to the fact that "CBS just did a terrible job getting it into the shops," as Box saw it.[29] On the other hand, what Kirk Blows described as "a solid piece of product that had the potential to do extremely well" was regarded less favourably by later reviewers. Jason Anderson, for one, argues that with this "lackluster" album, high only "in high-schmaltz rating," the band squandered the chance that Portrait gave it.[30]

text: Totally exhausted and having serious voice problems, Goalby left in November 1985 after an Australian tour. "I loved and believed in Uriah Heep but it kicked the shit out of me in the end," were his parting words.[29] Then John Sinclair quit deciding to join Ozzy Osbourne and keyboardist Phil Lanzon (Grand Prix, Sad Café) came in to fit in immediately into the Box-envisaged scheme of things.

text: American singer Steff Fontaine, formerly of Christian metal band Joshua, joined in July 1986 but he was criticised for being totally "unprofessional" (he missed, for some reason, a San Francisco gig) and was sacked in September 1986 after just one American tour.[31] Fontaine's position was offered then to ex-Grand Prix, Praying Mantis and Stratus vocalist Bernie Shaw, and that in retrospect was a winning move. Shaw "felt honoured at being invited to join such a legendary band" while for Box "it was like everything falling into place."[32]

text: The lineup remained unchanged from 1986 until 2007, being veteran Mick Box at the helm, Trevor Bolder on bass, Lee Kerslake on drums, vocalist Bernie Shaw and Phil Lanzon on keyboards. Their principal tour circuit has been in Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Japan and Russia. In December 1987 they were one of the first ever Western bands to play in Soviet Russia (UB40 were the first in 1986), under Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Elton John had already played shows there in the late 70s during the pre-Gorbachev era).[33] At Moscow's Olympic Stadium the band played ten consecutive nights to a total of 180,000 people (following a reception that Bernie Shaw remembered as being "something like Beatlemania"), which was represented in the international press as not just an achievement for Uriah Heep but a major breakthrough for Western music in general. The concerts were recorded and issued as the Live in Moscow album, which included three new tracks. Ironically, it was this behind the Iron Curtain excursion that did well to re-establish Heep's name back at home. After a series of sell-out dates in Czechoslovakia, East Berlin and Bulgaria the band returned to Britain for the Reading Festival in August 1988, and toured the UK with The Dogs D'Amour.

text: Raging Silence, produced by Richard Dodd and released in May 1989, was followed by a return to the Soviet Union, concerts in Poland, East Berlin, six dates in Brazil and another British tour. "The last two years have been the most enjoyable of all my time in Heep," Trevor Bolder was quoted to say at the time. The band played in the Central TV studios in Nottingham on 29 November 1989 (the film was shown as part of the Independent TV series Bedrock and a few years later it was repeated in the Cue Music series) and celebrated its 20th Anniversary with a series of compilations and re-issues.[32]

text: Produced by Trevor Bolder and released early in 1991, Different World got a mixed reception from the press (put down in Kerrang!, hailed in Metal Hammer) and sold poorly. "Yet another technically sound but artistically bland recording from Uriah Heep" (according to AllMusic)[34] failed to chart and marked the end of the band's contract with Legacy Records. Touring incessantly, the band issued some compilations of which Rarities from the Bronze Age and The Lansdowne Tapes (featuring previously unreleased material from the early 1970s) are considered most noteworthy. Still the first half of the 1990s is regarded even by the Heep fans as "the wilderness years."[32]

text: In late March/early April 1995, the band's former singer, John Lawton, briefly rejoined Uriah Heep for two weeks to tour South Africa and Austria with Deep Purple, filling in for Bernie Shaw, who was suffering from voice problems at the time.

text: The Sea of Light album (released in April 1995) produced by the band along with Kalle Trapp[35] was well received and in retrospect is seen as the band's return to form, the key to success being (according to critic Donald A. Guarisco) the way it "forsook the ill-judged pop metal stylings of albums like Equator for a return to the gothic-tinged old-school metal style that highlighted classic Uriah Heep albums like Look at Yourself.[36]

text: Produced by Pip Williams, Sonic Origami, originally issued in Europe and Japan in the fall of 1998, then, a year later, in the U.S., had "a grand, epic tone throughout" that, according to rock critic Steve Huey, "doesn't always match Uriah Heep's journeyman-sounding prog-tinged hard rock," still being "a solid entry in its chosen genre.[37] The release was followed by a successful European tour, which continued through 1999.[32]

text: The band released The Legend Continues DVD and then toured the UK. A reunion gig with Ken Hensley & John Lawton took place in London on 7 December 2001 in the course of the Magicians Birthday Party, which since then became a tradition, even though Hensley never actually joined again.

text: Earlier in 2001, during the summer, the group embarked on its first US tour in seven years and returned the following year to headline both nights of Classic Rock Productions Classic Rock Festival at The Patriots Theater at the Trenton War Memorial in Trenton, New Jersey on 5 and 6 October 2002, alongside Mostly Autumn, Asia, Karnataka, Focus and Nektar. Uriah Heep played an electric show the first night and an all acoustic show the second.

text: For most of the years that followed Uriah Heep have returned to Britain for a tour or just their annual showcase concert, the Magicians Birthday Party, which in 2003 was held at the now demolished London Astoria.[32] All the while Mick Box acted as a manager for the band until, on 5 April 2005, they retained Simon Porter as their manager.[38]

text: In early 2007, drummer Lee Kerslake had to leave the group due to ill health. In March of that year the band recruited Russell Gilbrook as their new drummer and immediately started recording a new studio album entitled Wake the Sleeper, where they used double drums in the songs Wake the Sleeper and War Child. Originally slated for a summer 2007 release, Universal Music finally released Wake the Sleeper on 2 June 2008.

text: In October 2009 Uriah Heep released their 40th Anniversary Celebration album, containing new studio recordings of twelve of their best known tracks, plus two brand new songs.[39] "This collection underlines again that Uriah Heep are deserving great respect for their past achievements but far more importantly it makes it crystal clear that this is a band with a bright future as well as a glorious history," wrote Chris Kee in his 9/10 review in Powerplay magazine’s February 2010 issue.[39]

text: A United States tour for June/July 2010 was delayed due to immigration problems; the first two dates had to be rescheduled. This resulted in an appearance at B.B. King's in New York City as being the first date of the tour. Then Uriah Heep performed live on the Progressive Rock stage at the inaugural High Voltage Festival in London's Victoria Park on 25 July 2010. They played their 1972 album Demons and Wizards in its entirety, being joined by ex-Whitesnake man Micky Moody on slide guitar.[40]

text: Uriah Heep released their 23rd studio album Into the Wild on 15 April 2011 in Europe (3 May in North America) via Frontiers Records.[41]

text: Bassist Trevor Bolder died on 21 May 2013 after suffering from pancreatic cancer. He was 62 years old.[42] British bassist John Jowitt (Ark, IQ, Arena) came in temporarily, followed by Davey Rimmer.

text: In May 2013, when the band toured The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland, they were again joined by their late 70s era singer John Lawton who was covering for Bernie Shaw, who required time off for a routine medical procedure. Then both Bernie and John fronted the group for their show in San Javier, Spain on July 12.

text: Uriah Heep entered the studio in January 2014[43] to begin recording their 24th studio album Outsider, which was released in June 2014.[44] The album featured new bass player Davey Rimmer who had been a substitute for Trevor Bolder the previous year.

text: In March 2015 they went on the "Down Unda Tour" visiting Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Auckland. On 25 September, they announced the release of their 25th studio album Totally Driven, a collection of re-recordings of classic Heep songs made in 2001, which was released on 12 November. On 15 October that year, the group played alongside Ken Hensley and Lee Kerslake at a special two-hour concert at Crocus City Hall in Moscow.

text: Swedish singer Stefan Berggren, from Berggren Kerslake Band (BKB), subbed for Bernie Shaw on lead vocals at the Rosenheim Festival in Germany on 14 July 2016 and again later that same year for a New Year’s Eve festival in Sibiu, Romania when Shaw had a family commitment.

text: 2016 also saw the group play a few Japanese dates and the Legends Rock Cruise. They began recording their next album, as well.

text: Musical style[edit]

text: Uriah Heep's music has predominantly been described by critics and journalists as heavy metal.[45][46][47][48][49][50][51] The band's style has also been labelled as progressive metal,[52] and the band as being influenced by the styles heavy metal, progressive rock and blues.[53] Uriah Heep's distinctive features have always included a massive keyboard sound, strong vocal harmonies and (in the early years) David Byron's quasi-operatic vocals.[15][54]

text: Personnel[edit]

text: Members[edit]

text:
Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals (1969–present)
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, backing and lead vocals (1986–present)
Bernie Shaw – lead and backing vocals (1986–present)
Russell Gilbrook – drums, percussion (2007–present)
Davey Rimmer – bass (2013–present; substitute - 2013; substitute for Trevor Bolder)

tag: ul

text:
David Byron – lead and backing vocals (1969–1976; died 1985)
Alex Napier – drums, percussion (1969–1970)
Paul Newton – bass, backing vocals (1969–1971)
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, backing and lead vocals (1969–1980)
Nigel Olsson – drums, percussion (1970)
Keith Baker – drums, percussion (1970–1971)
Iain Clarke – drums, percussion (1971)
Mark Clarke – bass, backing and lead vocals (1971–1972)
Lee Kerslake – drums, percussion, backing and lead vocals (1971–1979, 1981–2007)
Gary Thain – bass (1972–1975; died 1975)

John Wetton – bass, backing and lead vocals (1975–1976; died 2017)
Trevor Bolder – bass, backing and lead vocals (1976–1981, 1983–2013; died 2013)
John Lawton – lead and backing vocals (1976–1979; substitute - 1995, 2013; substitute for Bernie Shaw)
John Sloman – lead and backing vocals, keyboards (1979–1981)
Chris Slade – drums, percussion (1979–1981)
Gregg Dechert – keyboards (1980–1981)
Bob Daisley – bass (1981–1983)
Peter Goalby – lead and backing vocals (1981–1985)
John Sinclair – keyboards (1981–1986)
Steff Fontaine – lead and backing vocals (1986)

tag: table

text:
Mac Potter – bass (2011; substitute for Trevor Bolder)
John Jowitt – bass (2013; substitute for Trevor Bolder)
Stefan Berggren – lead vocals (2016; substitute for Bernie Shaw)

text: Timeline[edit]

text: Lineups[edit]

text:
1969
1969–1970
1970
1970–1971

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
David Byron – vocals
Alex Napier – drums, percussion
Paul Newton – bass, backing vocals

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
David Byron – vocals
Alex Napier – drums, percussion
Paul Newton – bass, backing vocals
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, vocals

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
David Byron – lead vocals
Paul Newton – bass, backing vocals
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, vocals
Nigel Olsson – drums, percussion

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
David Byron – vocals
Paul Newton – bass, backing vocals
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, vocals
Keith Baker – drums, percussion

1971
1971
1971–1972
1972–1975

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
David Byron – vocals
Paul Newton – bass, backing vocals
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, vocals
Iain Clarke – drums, percussion

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
David Byron – vocals
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, vocals
Iain Clark – drums, percussion
Mark Clarke – bass, vocals

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
David Byron – vocals
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, vocals
Mark Clarke – bass, vocals
Lee Kerslake – drums, percussion, vocals

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
David Byron – vocals
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, vocals
Lee Kerslake – drums, percussion, vocals
Gary Thain – bass

1975–1976
1976–1979
1979
1979–1980

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
David Byron – vocals
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, vocals
Lee Kerslake – drums, percussion, vocals
John Wetton – bass, vocals

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, vocals
Lee Kerslake – drums, percussion, vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass, vocals
John Lawton – vocals

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, vocals
Lee Kerslake – drums, percussion, vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass, vocals
John Sloman – vocals, keyboards

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
Ken Hensley – keyboards, rhythm guitars, vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass, vocals
John Sloman – vocals, keyboards
Chris Slade – drums, percussion

1980–1981
1981–1983
1983–1985
1986

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass, vocals
John Sloman – vocals, keyboards
Chris Slade – drums, percussion
Gregg Dechert – keyboards

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
Bob Daisley – bass
Peter Goalby – vocals
Lee Kerslake – drums, percussion, vocals
John Sinclair – keyboards

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
Peter Goalby – vocals
Lee Kerslake – drums, percussion, vocals
John Sinclair – keyboards
Trevor Bolder – bass, vocals

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
Lee Kerslake – drums, percussion, vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass, vocals
Steff Fontaine – vocals
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, vocals

1986–2007
2007–2013
2013–present

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
Lee Kerslake – drums, percussion, vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass, vocals
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, vocals
Bernie Shaw – vocals

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass, vocals
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, vocals
Bernie Shaw – vocals
Russell Gilbrook – drums, percussion

Mick Box – lead guitars, backing vocals
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, vocals
Bernie Shaw – vocals
Russell Gilbrook – drums, percussion
Davey Rimmer – bass

text: Discography[edit]

text:
...Very 'Eavy ...Very 'Umble (1970)
Salisbury (1971)
Look at Yourself (1971)
Demons and Wizards (1972)
The Magician's Birthday (1972)
Sweet Freedom (1973)
Wonderworld (1974)
Return to Fantasy (1975)
High and Mighty (1976)
Firefly (1977)
Innocent Victim (1977)
Fallen Angel (1978)
Conquest (1980)
Abominog (1982)
Head First (1983)
Equator (1985)
Raging Silence (1989)
Different World (1991)
Sea of Light (1995)
Sonic Origami (1998)
Wake the Sleeper (2008)
Celebration (2009)
Into the Wild (2011)
Outsider (2014)
Totally Driven (2015)