Malia McAndrew, PhD

Malia McAndrew, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of History at John Carroll University. She specializes in post-1945 United States history with an emphasis on gender and race. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, College Park and has taught at John Carroll University since 2008. During the 2018-2019 academic year she was awarded a visiting scholar appointment at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Dr. McAndrew is the author of several scholarly articles. Her publications have appeared in The Journal of Women’s History, the Organization of American Historian’s Magazine of History, and other noted academic outlets. Dr. McAndrew’s research focuses on how American conceptions of beauty and womanhood were shaped both at home and abroad during the Cold War. Her most recent work chronicles the life of Lt. Ethel B. Weed (1906-1975), a Cleveland native, who, was one of the few American women to devise and implement U.S. foreign policy during the U.S. military occupation of Japan from 1945-1952.

Dr. McAndrew primarily teaches courses on United States history from the Civil War to the present, with a special focus on post-World War II America. She also teaches a course on the history of modern Africa. Many of Dr. McAndrew’s courses contain experiential learning opportunities. In particular, she has taught students how to perform oral history interviews through community-based projects at the Fatima Family Center and Eliza Bryant Nursing Home in Cleveland’s Hough Neighborhood. 

At John Carroll, Dr. McAndrew is on the Faculty Steering Committees for the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Program, the Peace, Justice & Human Rights Program, and the Asian Studies Program. In 2017, she served as a historical consultant and interviewee for PBS of the Western Reserve Documentary The Battle for the Right to Vote.

MAJOR PUBLICATIONS

“Lt. Ethel Weed through her Letters: The Personal Reflection of a Woman in the U.S. Occupation of Japan.” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal 55/56 (2020): 108-127.

“Beauty, Soft Power, and the Politics of Womanhood During the U.S. Military Occupation of Japan, 1945-1952.” Journal of Women’s History 26.4 (2014): 83-107.

“Japanese-American Beauty Pageants and Minstrel Shows: The Performance of Race and Gender by Nisei Youth During World War II” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. 7.1 (2014): 42-64.

“A Twentieth Century Triangle Trade: Selling Black Beauty at Home and Abroad, 1945-1965.” Enterprise & Society Vol. 11, no. 4 (December 2010): 786-812.   

“Selling Black Beauty: African American Modeling Agencies and Charm Schools in Postwar America” Magazine of History. (January 2010): 29-32.