7 Questions With Shane Newell, Historian, Collector, and Game Developer

 

Shane Newell is the Senior Director of Real Estate for Baystate Health in Springfield, Massachusetts. He serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Baystate Medical Office Building Association and as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Pioneer Valley Federal Credit Union. Shane is also a historian, essayist, and art collector. He is the author of The Essential Guide To Stevens Decoys, Joseph Warren and the Boston Rebellion, and inventor of Franklin's Fortune deck-building game. 

1. How and when did you get hooked on history?

My interest in history began as a hobby enterprise – treasure hunting for valuable antiques in the mid-1980s. As I researched the things I found, I began to take interest in the story behind the objects. This became a love for both history and the artistic objects that lent physical and visual connections to the story being told. A single object can represent generations of human endeavor.

2. What role does history play or has it played in your personal life? 

I have a library of mentors and role models that help shape my thinking. I read historical biographies to learn about human nature because, while it is imperfect, it can be understood and predictable. Love, greed, fear, integrity, courage, and all the rest of human nature has been with us since creation. I believe we can learn more from studying historical lives than we can from historical events. Historical mentoring is most useful when the insight is applied to our own nature and patterns that we want to strengthen or overcome. 

3. How does history play a part of your professional life/career? 

My career as a corporate real estate executive may appear to have little relationship with history, but from history we can give context to our modern working life, our important communications, the business cycles we encounter, and human behavior.

4. Why is studying/knowing history important? 

Without history, being “in the moment” is meaningless, or it will be meaningless after the moment is over. Without history, we are in aimless spell. We confuse change, modernizing, smoothing, simplifying, and streamlining, with human progress – that being, ideally, the quest for human happiness. Yet, with all these conveniences and more, our society is no happier than it was 50, 100 or 200 years ago, perhaps much less. History teaches us that lasting happiness is born in a gritty connection to the earth, our personal and public trials over time, and doing something useful for others. Mobile devices and conveniences can’t offer the kind of happiness known by people for thousands of years, long before these recent inventions. The only way we can learn about lasting happiness is by understanding human history. When we value our past, we can be happy in the moment. 

5. What is your favorite period or aspect of history to learn about and why?

I enjoy artistic and biographical interpretations of the American patriots from 1750 to 1800. I study the ideological constructs related to self-government. I find the time period most compelling and revealing of the American Spirit – the quest for enlightenment, common sense, liberty, resolve, justice, and having the courage to trust in the virtue of the People to govern themselves. It’s been a long and difficult road forged ahead by a special kind of unified hope for America.

6. What is Franklin’s Fortune and how did it come about?

Franklin’s Fortune is a deck-building game that I developed based on the works of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin knew that to learn, we must be involved.  This is the reason I decided to “gamify” Franklin’s timeless wisdoms. Few educational systems consider the value of balancing energy, experience, opportunities, wealth, courage, wisdom, persistence, and the virtue gain by overcoming obstacles. My game is designed for this purpose – to have real-life usefulness. Each game mechanic represents a guiding principle taught by Franklin. Many players have shared with me how Franklin’s Fortune has changed their outlook on life, realizing that success is simply balancing energy with meaningful pursuits. 

7. Like Franklin, you’re a man of many talents. Please tell us about a book or project or two?  

I think we all want to do something interesting, and that usually requires trying many different things. Franklin did many interesting things, and he was uniquely successful with all of them. My projects haven’t been commercially successful, but their purposes are served. My book about Stevens Decoys helped introduce this unique and indigenous folk-art to many types of collectors. My pamphlet, More Common Sense, is a reflective essay about modern society and administrative government. My book about Dr. Joseph Warren and the memorial art collection creates new interest about this astonishing patriot leader. At the outset of American Revolution, Joseph Warren was known throughout America, and dubiously feared in England. Today, only a few hundred people understand his important role as a Leader. I want to help restore his legacy with a project called The Joseph Warren Center for History and Leadership. I enjoy writing essays about these topics – along with an occasional personal, and amusing, story – on my website shane-newell.com.