Anna Wagner Keichline, Architect and Industrial Designer

Anna Wagner Keichline (1889 – 1943) was an architect and industrial designer who received seven patents for her building-related industrial designs. A 1911 graduate of Cornell University’s architecture program, in 1920 Keichline became the first woman to earn her architecture license in Pennsylvania. Owing to her fluency in German, she volunteered as a special agent in the military intelligence division during World War I.

For most of her life, Keichline lived in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania where her father was a prominent attorney. At age fourteen, Keichline earned first prize at the country fair for an oak card table and walnut chest that she made. “They, in quality and finish, compare favorably with the work of a skilled mechanic,” a newspaper reported, noting that Keichline had “the best outfit of carpenter implements to be found in town.”

Keichline enrolled in a mechanical engineering program at Pennsylvania State College but left after one year for Cornell’s architecture program. She returned to Bellefonte after graduation and started her own practice in her father’s law office, advertising for clients in the local newspaper starting in 1911. Unlike some female architects of this era, Keichline made no attempt to hide her gender by using initials instead of her first name. Perhaps her family’s affluence provided the financial security that made such misdirection unnecessary. One advertisement read in part, “Miss Anna W. Keichline, Architect and Builder.” On July 4, 1913, Keichline donned her graduation regalia and led a march down her town’s main streets in support of women’s suffrage.

Repurposed Plaza Theater (Courtesy BCHA)

By 1915, Keichline had designed at least two schoolhouses, several homes, and a church. She would go on to design a Cadillac dealership with repair shop and office, a theater, a country clubhouse, apartment houses, and a number of private residences. Most of her architectural designs were built in Pennsylvania, but some were in Ohio and in Washington, DC, where she was stationed during the war.

In addition to designing buildings, Keichline also patented seven design elements that made the buildings more efficient. Her first patent, in 1912, was received for a space-saving sink and washtub. For her 1924 Kitchen Construction patent, she stated, “The object of this invention is to provide a kitchen, the parts of which are so designed as to involve the minimum amount of labor on the part of the housekeeper and to reduce the operative cost.” In 1924 she patented her design for “a folding bed especially intended for use where the elements of the bedstead are designed to fold into the wall structure of an apartment.” A 1927 invention of an air system was “to provide means for heating a building by compressed air and also to use the air for other purposes, such as in washing dishes and clothes and as a cooling means. Another object of the invention is to provide a vacuum system for cleaning purposes.”

Image from Keichline’s “Building Block” patent, 1926.

Keichline received the most attention for her 1926 invention of her Building Block or “K-Brick,” a lightweight, fireproof clay or concrete masonry unit with a face the size of a brick.

After being ill for nearly a year, Keichline died in 1943 at age 53. After describing some of her many accomplishments, Keichline’s obituary stated, “She enjoyed life in many ways and was religious and philosophical and loyal to her friends.”

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Sources:

Sarah Allaback, The First American Women Architects. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008.

“May Devote Life to Industrial Art,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 19, 1903: 3.

Advertisement for Keichline’s services, Centre Daily Times (State College, Pennsylvania), November 10, 1911: 4.

Lauren Goad Davis, “Making a Name for Herself: Anna Wagner Keichline, [Woman] Architect,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, Vol. 87, No. 4 (Autumn 2020): 664-669.

Sarah A. Lichtman, “Anna Wagner Keichline,” Pioneering Women in American Architecture.

“Anna Keichline Dies at Home,” Centre Daily Times, February 5, 1943: 1.