Andrew Jackson Lamoureux was born in Iosco, Michigan, the son of Thomas L. and Elizabeth (Carver) Lamoureux. He was a descendant of Andre Lamoureux, a Huguenot shipmaster and pilot of Meschers, on the west coast of France, who after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes escaped to Bristol, England, and, toward the end of the century, emigrated to New York.
He was prepared for college in the little village of Howell, Michigan. He entered Cornell University with the class of 1874 but, because of ill health, he was obliged to leave before the completion of his course. During his university days, however, he was prominent in student activities.
Upon leaving the university, Lamoureux engaged in newspaper work, first in Utica, later in Ithaca, New York, and, at the time of the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, he represented the newspaper directory at the newspaper exhibition held there.
Not long after this, in 1877, he went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to become editor of an English paper, the British and American Mail, published there and known as the official organ of the Brazilian coffee industry. Later, upon reorganization, it became the Rio News. In its pages, as editor and owner, he took up the fight against slavery. This had theoretically been abolished, so far as the children of slaves were concerned, in 1871, but the fact that the older generations were still in bondage and that the new law was evaded aroused the young American to continue the struggle against the institution.
When, in 1888, slavery was completely abolished, the people of Rio, realizing the important part he had played in its downfall, publicly acknowledged their appreciation and presented him with a diamond-studded gold pen. In addition to his journalistic activities, not only in connection with his own publication but also with several New York and London papers for which he acted as correspondent, he compiled in 1887 a Handbook of Rio de Janeiro. He was, likewise, one of the founders, and, for seven years, the secretary, of the "Strangers' Hospital" in Rio, one of the first modern public hospitals in Brazil.
Because he was the champion of the liberal cause and bent his efforts toward progressive welfare work, his life was often threatened and, at one time, it was necessary for him to leave the country for a period of eight months. In 1902, having disposed of his interest in the newspaper, he left Brazil and returned to the United States in broken health. Several years later he became reference librarian in the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, where he remained until his death.
During his editorship, "Rio News" acquired considerable political importance and a wide circulation both in Brazil and abroad. The most important literary work was his contribution of seventeen scholarly articles to the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Several of these cover the geography and statistics of certain Latin-American countries; others deal with the more important cities; all reveal the wide acquaintance of Lamoureux with South American conditions.
On June 7, 1897 Lamoureux married Sarah Cross, who was a graduate nurse, trained at the Swansea General and Eye Hospital, Birmingham, England.
