The following events related to sociology occurred in the 1870s.

• Pierre Guillaume Frédéric le Play's Le Organisation de Famille is published.
• Carl Menger's Principles of Economics is published.
• Lewis Henry Morgan's Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family is published.
• Sir Edward Burnett Tylor's In Primitive Culture is published.

• Herbert Spencer's The Study of Sociology is published.

• Francis Galton's English men of science : their nature and nurture is published.
• Pierre Guillaume Frédéric Le Play's La réforme sociale en France déduite de l’observation comparée des peuples Européens is published.
• Henry Sidgwick's The Method of Ethics is published.

• Francis Galton's Statistics by intercomparison, with remarks on the law of frequency of error is published.
• Frederic Harrison's Order and Progress is published.

• Friedrich Engels' Anti-Dühring is published.

• Henry George's, Progress and Poverty is published.