In know that there is some variation among fields for when post-docs became popular. My understanding is that the "post-doc" institution as a whole began around the beginning of the last century, but didn't become common until many decades later. In the physics (and, I think, math) world, there was an explosion of post-docs in the US after WWII. During the war, the government had created many national labratories, and most of the top physicists took time away from their other academic pursuits to help in the war effort. When the war ended, the government was still very interested in funding physics research (Cold War!) in particular, and academics in general (G.I. Bill!). Thus, in the US anyway, the middle of the 20th century saw a dramatic rise in both the demand and supply for researchers. But the number of professorships didn't match pace, hence the growing number of post-docs. Moreover, many of the leading senior physicists at the time (Oppenheimer, Bethe, etc.) strongly encouraged the creation of post-doc positions as a way for the young people (Feynman, Dyson, Schwinger, etc.) to communicate their theories. As is often said: the best way to send an idea is to wrap it in a person.
This story is very well told in D. Kaiser, Drawing theories apart: the dispersion of Feynman diagrams in postwar physics, University of Chicago Press, 2005.
One other comment is important to make. The structure of the academy (and in particular the names of ranks) can vary wildly from country to country, so that "assistant professor" in some countries means "post-doc" in others. For example, Denmark in the last decade has made a conscious shift away from the "German" model, in which there are very few "professors", each of whom over see many full-time senior researchers, and towards a more "American" model where the rank "(full) professor" is more freely given.
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