What are other examples of small groups of people discovering something new or introducing something new to the western world?

Two stories I can think of have this in common… adventurers stumble upon a “paradise” of sorts (and under the right confluence of technology and circumstances) and attempt to live their dreams there. Their success brings about a sea change in western culture that leaves an indelible mark on the collective consciousness or history.

The first example is the group of guys who were the pioneering big wave surfers on Hawaii’s North Shore in the 50s. It was a group of about 10 or 12 guys who figured out how to catch the big waves and spent days on end surfing for hours every day and living without much money off the land and ocean (diving for food, e.g.) Within a few years, the surfing craze hit mainstream America via Hollywood and Hawaii and California were overrun with surfers.

The second is the group of guys who stumbled upon the Taos Valley in New Mexico in the late 1800s, where the dramatic landscape and undisturbed American Indian culture provided subject matter that had never been painted before and that provided distinctly American themes that broke cleanly from the art establishments of New York and Paris. Their artistic success eventually morphed into commercial success when the railroads and tourist industry commissioned paintings to sell trips to the Southwest. The phenomenon changed the indigenous culture of Taos Pueblo, caused the town to swell with tourists every summer as early as the 1920s and was largely responsible for the establishment of Taos and Santa Fe as a premier art market.

Do you know of other examples of stories like these?

I say “new” because while native Hawaiians surfed for a thousand years prior, westerners were the ones who sought to push the experience to its edge. Similarly, American Indians lived in the Taos Valley for thousands of years, but westerners fell over themselves with the natural beauty and converted it into an art market.