Erskine Bronson Ingram II was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota on November 27, 1931, the son of millionaire businessman Orrin Henry Ingram, Sr. and Hortense Bigelow Ingram. He was named after his grandfather. His family moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1948.

Ingram was educated at the Phillips Academy and Montgomery Bell Academy. He attended college at Vanderbilt University and transferred to Princeton University, graduating in 1953. At Princeton, he majored in English, and belonged to the Republican Club.

In 1958, Ingram met Martha Robinson Rivers in New York City, and they got married the same year. They moved to New Orleans, where the Ingram Corporation was headquartered, but moved back to Nashville in 1961. They had three sons, David Bronson Ingram, Orrin H. Ingram II, and John R. Ingram, and one daughter, Robin Ingram Patton.

After the death of his father in 1963, Ingram became President and his brother, Frederic B. Ingram, became Chairman of the Ingram Corporation. In 1976, Ingram and his brother Frederic were indicted for bribing officials in Illinois for a “$48 million Chicago sewage contract”. Ingram was acquitted but his brother was convicted. By 1978, they split the company. Frederic kept the Ingram Corporation, which consisted of oil refineries and pipeline system, headquartered in New Orleans.

Ingram joined the Vanderbilt Board of Trust in 1967, and served as its Chairman from 1991 to 1995. He donated US$25 million to Vanderbilt. Additionally, he helped fundraise US$500 million for the university.

Ingram took over the Tennessee Book Company, Ingram Materials Company, Ingram Barge Company, and Bluewater Insurance Company. He called it Ingram Industries. By 1995, the Ingram Barge Company became the Inland Marine Transportation Group, the third-largest inland waterway carrier in the United States. In 1970, the Tennessee Book Company became known as the Ingram Book Company, and by 1995 it controlled 52 percent of the wholesale book distribution market to American retail bookstores. He also founded Ingram Software; in 1985 it acquired Micro D and morphed into Ingram Micro Incorporated. It quickly became the largest distributor of microcomputer hardware and software in the world.

Ingram served on the Board of Directors of Weyerhaeuser. In 1988, he owned 222,380 shares. He served as the President of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce in 1987, and later as Vice-Chairman of the Tennessee Industrial and Agricultural Development Commission.

In 1993, he nominated the first African-American accepted for membership in the Belle Meade Country Club. He also supported Inroads and the Nashville Symphony. He was a member and former Chair of the PENCIL Foundation, a non-profit organization whose aim is to improve public education in Nashville. He served as the Chairman of the steering committee of Nashville’s Agenda.

Ingram died of cancer on June 15, 1995. At the time of his death, he was Tennessee’s only billionaire and 56th richest person in the United States. Golfer Arnold Palmer was a pallbearer at his funeral. He is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and the Ingram Studio Arts Center are named for him.