Louie Croft Boyd (1871 – June 15, 1951) was an American nurse, hospital superintendent of nurses, nursing instructor, and writer. As a lobbyist for the newly formed Colorado State Trained Nurses Association, she advocated for legislation to regulate the licensing of nurses in Colorado. Upon passage of the bill in 1905, she applied for and became the first licensed nurse in the state. She was posthumously inducted into the Colorado Nurses Association Hall of Fame and the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2004.
Louie Croft Boyd was born in New York in 1871.[1] As a teenager, Boyd was active in the cause of women's suffrage and wrote for a newspaper. In 1892 she relocated to Colorado for health reasons, and during her convalescence became interested in nursing.[2] She enrolled at the newly opened Colorado Training School for Nurses at Denver General Hospital, where she earned her B.A. in 1899.[3]
In 1910 she began training nurses at Park Avenue Hospital, City and County Hospital, and Children's Hospital of Denver.[3] During World War I, she was a Red Cross Instructor and Examiner in Elementary Hygiene and Home Care of the Sick, and was involved in the formation of a military base hospital in Denver.[2][3] She later taught at the University of Colorado and the University of New Mexico.[2][6]
In 1904 Boyd participated in the establishment of the Colorado State Trained Nurses Association (today the Colorado Nurses Association).[5] She served that organization as secretary from 1904 to 1906.[3] She was also the group's first lobbyist, in which capacity she advocated for legislation to regulate the licensing of nurses.[5] When the bill was passed into law in 1905, creating the State Board of Nursing Examiners, Boyd applied for her own license, becoming the first licensed nurse in the state on July 26, 1905.[5][7] Boyd's 1911 work State Registration for Nurses (updated in 1915) summarizes the laws applying to nurse registration throughout the United States and notes the differences in regulatory rules among states.[8]
Boyd served as the first secretary of the State Board of Nursing Examiners from 1905 to 1907, and later served as its president.[2][3] She was also a member of the National League for Nursing Education.[3][5]
Palmer Lake and environments: The wonderland of the West, a realm of grandeur and beauty, an unrivalled health and pleasure resort, a rich agricultural and grazing country, a promising mining camp, a country of many diversified resources, a land which offers homes, health and happiness to rich and poor. Palmer Lake, Colorado. 1895. OCLC83451367. (with W. Finley Thompson)
^Réney, Rebecca Emily; Reney, Rebecca Emily (April 1911). "Review: Aids to Midwives by Rebecca Emily Réney". American Journal of Nursing. 11 (7): 582. doi:10.2307/3404950. JSTOR3404950.
^Smith, Jason P. (25 October 2004). "CNA Celebrates 100 years". Denver's Nursing Star. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
