D. Michael Quinn taught history at Brigham Young University for twelve years after he earned his PhD at Yale University in 1976. He is the author of several books on Mormon history, including his three-volume Mormon Hierarchy series and Early Mormonism and the Magic World View published by Signature Books. He received the Herbert Feis Award from the American Historical Association for his 1996 study, Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth Century Americans: A Mormon Example. In 2016 the Mormon History Association awarded him the Leonard J. Arrington Award for distinguished and outstanding service in Mormon history.