Amy Millstone, professor of French literature at the University of South Carolina, was one of the prime movers in the Western Society for French History during the 1980s and 1990s. She served on the governing council and distinguished herself in regular conference presentations as a scholar of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French popular culture. Through her singular energies and enthusiasm, Amy drew together diverse resources and personalities. In the process, she helped orchestrate some of the most memorable moments in the society's history. In 1989, Amy arranged for the free use of two executive jets to fly a talented group of musicians from the University of South Carolina to perform on Napoleonic-era instruments at the New Orleans meeting, a highlight of the society's bicentennial commemorations. In 1996, she literally saved the annual meetings in Charlotte, North Carolina by agreeing to step in as local arrangements coordinator when the UNC coordinator could not fulfill the obligation. She secured a distinguished panel of guest speakers, arranged hotel accommodations, and even stuffed conference packets in the last hours before the conference. At the same meetings in 1996, she dazzled participants with a multi-media presentation, which explored the fin-de-siècle chanson, Paris landmarks and working-class identities. Her efforts were all the more impressive because she was in the last stages of a valiant battle with leukemia. Her life's work on the nineteeth-century right-wing author and independent woman, Gyp, was brought short by her untimely death in January 1997, but her legacy continues as a consequence of her generous bequest to the WSFH.
The Millstone Prize, awarded to the best interdisciplinary paper presented at the annual meetings, honors Amy's singular ability to use literature, music, dance and film to teach French culture and history to students and colleagues alike.