Ornamental pediments are no longer set by rote over doors and windows and entrances like triangular hats. It might even be possible to support a theory that pediments fell out of favor in architecture at about the same time that hats fell out of favor as essential ornaments on the tops of human heads.
The pediments in these pictures all derive from collections at the Library of Congress, and mainly from government buildings erected toward the end of the nineteenth century or early in the twentieth. A time of proud American prosperity and happy exploitation of all the world's artistic and material resources.