TITLE: When and why did the postdoctoral position originate?
QUESTION [22 upvotes]: Does anyone know when and how the system of post-doctoral studies after a Ph. D. originated? I've heard in a few places that there was a time when there was no such thing as a post-doc, and people used to go for faculty positions right after their Ph. D.'s. Is this true? When and why did it change? What does the post-doctoral position achieve?

REPLY [11 votes]: Another factor is that as the decades have gone by, in many branches of math the amount one has had to learn to get going researchwise has increased markedly. This of course varies a lot from subject to subject, but in many areas it can take quite a while after the PhD to develop the kind of research record that a research university wants to see before they hire you on the tenure-track and take the risks associated with that. This encourages the proliferation of postdocs as well.