a solo performance in Providence as an opening act to a production of Richard III staged by John A. Arneaux's theatre troupe. In 1887, she performed at Boston's Music Hall before an audience of 5,000. Jones made her New York debut on April 5, 1888, at Steinway Hall. During a performance at Wallack's Theater in New York, Jones came to the attention of Adelina Patti's manager, who recommended that Jones tour the West Indies with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Jones made successful tours of the Caribbean in 1888 and 1892. Around this time one critic at the theatrical journal the New York Clipper dubbed her "the Black Patti" after Adelina Patti, an epithet that Jones disliked, preferring Madame Jones. She later told a reporter that the name "rather annoys me... I am afraid people will think I consider myself the equal to Patti herself. I assure you I don't think so, but I have a voice and I am striving to win the favor of the public by honest merit and hard work." In February 1892, Jones performed at the White House for President Benjamin Harrison. She eventually sang for four consecutive presidents — Harrison, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt — and the British royal family. For three of her White House performances, Jones had to enter the building through the back. She was finally allowed to enter through the front door for the Roosevelt performance. Jones performed at the Grand Negro Jubilee at New York's Madison Square Garden in April 1892 before an audience of 75,000. She sang the song "Swanee River" and selections from La traviata. She was so popular that she was invited to perform at the Pittsburgh Exposition (1892) and the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893). At the Chicago performance, the venue was packed an hour before she was set to perform, and she received an ovation after singing "Ocean, Thou Mighty Monster." In June 1892, Jones became the first African American to sing at the Music Hall in New York (renamed Carnegie Hall the following year). Among the selections in her program were Charles Gounod's "Ave Maria" and Giuseppe Verdi's "Sempre libera" (from La traviata). The New York Echo wrote of her performance at the Music Hall: "If Mme Jones is not the equal of Adelina Patti, she at least can come nearer it than anything the American public has heard. Her