Tearing Down Walls

Tearing Down Walls: A Woman's Triumph is a brave and honest look back at the breakthroughs that have marked Mary Gardiner Jones' whole life. From breaking free of a forceful and domineering mother who saw only marriage in her daughter's future, dealing with the stigma and loss of an absent, alcoholic father, to confronting and overcoming workplace gender barriers that appeared at every step of her legal and governmental career. The book examines the psychological impact that her elitist background and work experiences had on her personal development, and describes her psychoanalysis and the role that it played throughout her life to help her heal emotional scars. These memoirs bring a practitioner's approach to scholarly issues. The book is a celebration of one brilliant and determined woman's successes, a careful in-depth and comprehensive review of her major career milestones.

Mary Gardiner Jones not only tore down walls that kept women out of positions of power and influence—she smashed them to smithereens. And in so doing, she created opportunities for future generations who never knew how high and thick the walls once were. Hers is an exemplary life, offering men as well as women a lesson in what one person's indomitable spirit can accomplish. Read this and be inspired., In this frank and very readable memoir, Mary Gardiner Jones describes growing up in the 1920s and 1930s in a privileged, "old" New York (and Long Island) family...Tearing Down Walls: One Woman's Triumph is an interesting and revealing autobiography with themes that intersect with issues in wider society., Often overlooked is her role in introducing the consumer into administrative law thinking and proceedings. She argued and encouraged both academics studying consumer behavior in the legal environment as well as regulators and attorneys. She brought her considerable persusasive powers to bear to help facilitate this major change in regulatory thinking...Her insights into the inner workings of organizations (especially the Federal Trade Commission) is a strength of this book. Her description of the various players and their impact on her life is one of the major highlights of the second half of this book., This is an amazing life story of a woman born into American privilege whose family lands become both LaGuardia Airport and New York's Jones Beach. She could have been just another prejudiced upper class celebrity, but Mary Gardiner Jones was anything but. From her war experiences in the OSS to her struggles in the late 1940s to find work as a woman lawyer with a degree from Yale, to her experiences in public service as she climbed the rungs to become the first woman Federal Trade Commissioner and then into the corporate world, this is a life worth knowing about and examining., Tearing Down Walls is a compelling work.

Mary Gardiner Jones, attorney, corporate executive, former Federal Trade Commissioner (1964D1973) and public service advocate has specialized all her life in legal, regulatory, and consumer issues relating to antitrust, mental health, aging, and the use of telecommunications to promote the delivery of health care services to seniors and disadvantaged persons in their homes.