[1][2] Clough spent much of her early life in Massachusetts, attending school in Worcester and studying piano and voice in Boston.
[3] In 1896, Clough joined Oriental America, a Broadway theatre show created by the Vaudeville impresario John William Isham.
The hospitality shown towards them undoubtedly impressed Afro-American travelers" who because of racism and racist laws frequently experienced discrimination or inferior accommodations in the United States.
[5] In the early 1900s, Clough returned to the United States and continued her acting career, primarily performing in all-black musical comedy shows.
[8] Reflecting on this play, writer Benjamin Griffith Brawley wrote that it was a drama that aimed to "get away from the minstrelsy and burlesque" that predominated the early African American theater scene "and honestly present Negro characters face to face with all the problems that test the race in the crucible of American civilization".