Seventeen individuals answered the questions printed in J. E. Spears' The Mental Portrait Album. For Recording the Autographic Confessions of Friends and Acquaintances Regarding their Opinions, Tastes, Fancies, Etc. (St. Louis: John L. Boland Book & Stationery Co., [1895]), which has a pictorial cloth cover showing a female figure and flowers. Entries between 1894 and 1895 were filled in by individuals residing in Louisville and Danville, Kentucky; Pleasant Hill, Kansas City, Harrisonville, and Hughesville, Missouri; and Kansas City, Kansas, while the later entries from 1910 to 1972 were written by those residing in Forney and Wichita Falls, Texas. Answers reveal contributors' favorite items, their tastes in music and literature, their opinions on admirable and detestable personality traits in men and women, as well as their beliefs about transportation, great reforms, follies, and wonders of the world. Varying beliefs and prejudices are reflected, including those relating to women's rights, immigration, race (in particular against those of Mexican descent), and politics. Common answers celebrating emerging technologies, inventors, and historical figures, such as Thomas Edison and Robert E. Lee, indicate broader social phenomena.
Contributors noted their favorites of the following categories:
Color, Flower, Book, Animal, Season, Poet or Poetess, Prose Writer, Composer, Character in History, Character in Romance, Scenery, Music, Amusement, Occupation During a Summer's Vacation, and My Pet Hobby.
Additional questions on "opinions, tastes and fancies" consist of the following:
- My Chief Ambition in Life
- The trait I most admire in a woman
- The trait I most admire in a man
- The trait I most detest in each
- The fault for which I have the most toleration in another person
- That for which I have the least
- The qualifications or accomplishments I most desire in a matrimonial partner
- My idea of perfect happiness
- My idea of real misery
- There is always some one person, or thing, for which we have an attachment exceeding all other endearments in intensity. For me it is for
- Of the various modes of traveling, I prefer
- If privileged to make a journey, the single place or locality I would prefer to visit, above all others would be
- As a traveling companion, I would most highly appreciate
- Shipwrecked on a deserted island, I would most desire
- The greatest wonder of the world, according to my estimation, is
- As an inventor, I think the greatest service towards the world's progress has been rendered by
- Of the many reforms at present under consideration, I most sincerely and particularly advocate
- The greatest folly in the Nineteenth Century, in my opinion, is
- My motto
