Damn History #90 / May 2025

A few weeks ago, I learned that a man I admired, Howard Dully, died on February 11, 2025. He was 76 years old and had been one of the youngest patients to receive a lobotomy from Walter Freeman, M.D. – the world’s most active developer and advocate of that controversial surgical treatment for people suffering from psychiatric disorders.

Howard’s lobotomy happened in 1960, when he was twelve. I covered his disturbing case in my book The Lobotomist, a biography of Freeman. After my volume’s publication, I shared a book-event stage with Howard and was finally able to connect a grown man with the child discussed so cavalierly in Freeman’s report on the case.

Meeting Howard demolished all my assumptions about lobotomy survivors. Thoughtful and calm, he seemed unimpaired by his childhood experience. He was fully intact intellectually and emotionally. But as Howard later wrote in his published memoir, the knowledge that he had been lobotomized left him with lifelong feelings of inferiority.

Twenty years ago, Howard told the story of his search for information on his surgery in a landmark audio documentary titled My Lobotomy, produced by Piya Kochhar and Dave Isay. It is one of the most moving works of documentary storytelling I’ve heard. I urge you to listen to it in Howard’s memory.

Here in Damn History you'll find, as usual, recommendations on good and popularly accessible historical reading, with tips on writing and updates on my own work.

 — Jack El-Hai

Follow me on X at @Jack_ElHai, on Bluesky at @jackelhai.bsky.social, and on Threads at @jackelhai1.

Contact me by email at [email protected]

Personal Notes

This month, the Estonian publisher Hea Lugo will release a translation of my book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, the fifteenth foreign-language edition of that book.

In this interview, I explain how I wrote Face in the Mirror, my new book about a face transplant, and how writing it affected me.

Recent Popular History from All Over

You may find some of these articles behind a paywall if you’ve exceeded the publisher’s allowance of free views.

When the U.S. Government sought to remove gay women from the federal workforce in the 1950s, investigators could not figure out what constituted a lesbian relationship.

Ray and Charles Eames created a form of modernism that was livable.

A monument discovered at a Japanese-American internment camp reignited old conflicts.

The mysterious disappearance of a San Francisco woman nears a solution after 59 years; also a star reporter’s murder is solved after 48 years.

James Baldwin anxiously wrestled with the burdens of freedom.

During World War II, a Jewish woman hid in her own home to spy on SS Nazis.

A prosecutor assembled a liar and three jailhouse snitches to wrongfully send a man to Florida’s Death Row in 1993.

A notorious folk hero seemed to spring out of nowhere.

Resources 

Concerned citizens halted a DOGE plan to close down and sell the Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.

Here is an inspiring collection of the past year’s best investigative reporting.

Note these tips on using newspaper archives to write narrative history.

A scholar explains why academic historians are getting better at writing history.

Readers and writers alike will be surprised at the effort that goes into researching historical naval fiction.

Did the Supreme Court ignore Donald Trump’s constitutional ineligibility to become President in 2024?

Author Ed Simon discusses the diabolical origins of his newest popular-history book.

“Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” – William Fitzjames Oldham

Housekeeping

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About me: I'm a history and science writer. I've contributed hundreds of articles to such publications as Smithsonian, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Magazine, Wired, Scientific American, Discover, GQ, Longreads and many others. My books include The Lost Brothers: A Family’s Decades-Long Search, The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness, Non-Stop: A Turbulent History of Northwest Airlines, and The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goering, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WW2.

I frequently give talks and lead workshops on the topics of my books as well as on the craft of nonfiction writing. To book me for your event, please contact Jayme Boucher, Hachette Speakers Bureau, at [email protected].

Please feel free to get in touch.