We’re happy to announce that the latest Scalar publication to go live is the digital companion to Matthew Delmont’s new book The Nicest Kids in Town (University of California Press), which explores American Bandstand’s discriminatory policies against black youth in Philadelphia contrary to the claims of host Dick Clark that he integrated the show in its early years. Delmont’s digital project features over 100 images and video clips, including memorabilia, newspaper clippings, and vintage clips from American Bandstand. The Scalar publication first began to take shape at the NEH Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities in Summer 2011.

Delmont’s project uses Scalar’s paths feature to organize his material into three main sections: “Bandstand’s Local Years: 1952-1957,” “America’s Bandstand: 1957-1964,” and “Remembering American Bandstand,” each replete with media illustrations. As the screen shot above (taken from one of Scalar’s built-in visualizations) illustrates, media (shown in green) comprises roughly 3/4 of the discrete content elements in the project, and is extensively referenced (media links are represented as green arcs).

Delmont recently spoke about his research on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman and Juan González.