Ludlow Griscom was born in New York City on June 17, 1890, the son of Clement Acton Griscom and Genevieve Sprigg Ludlow. Much of Griscom's early education was obtained at home from private tutors and at the Syms School. He often travelled to Europe with his parents, and he eventually spoke fluently or read several languages. Griscom received an A.B. from Columbia University in 1912 and a Master's degree in 1915 from Cornell University where he was the first graduate student of Arthur A. Allen, America's first professor of ornithology.

In 1916 Griscom joined the staff of the American Museum of Natural History as an assistant in the ichthyology department. The next year he transferred to the department of ornithology where he remained until 1927. During World War I he served as a second lieutenant in Army intelligence.

While a member of the museum staff, Griscom participated in several ornithological and botanical expeditions: Nicaragua (1917), Panama (1924, 1927), Yucatan (1926), Gaspe Peninsula (1923), and Newfoundland (1925). On the latter expedition, he met Edith Sumner Sloan, whom he married on September 14, 1926.

In 1927 Griscom accepted the position of research curator of zoology at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology and moved his family to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1948 he was made research ornithologist at the museum, a position he held until his retirement in 1955. Griscom continued to travel extensively: (Guatemala (1930; numerous trips to Florida, Virginia, the Caribbean, Honduras (1951), and nearly every other state in the United States. (See Appendix I for a list of major trips.)

Griscom was a respected botanist as well as an ornithologist, and he went on trips to Newfoundland and Labrador to collect plants for the Gray Herbarium at Harvard. His specialties, however, were the field identification of North American birds and the distribution of birds in Mexico and Central America. Griscom made a significant contribution to the field of ornithology by demonstrating that birds had distinctive field marks which could be used to identify them reliably with binoculars and without shooting them. However, Griscom himself often collected bird specimens, and he donated several to the Peabody Museum of Salem.

Griscom was the author or co-author of several books and a frequent contributor to ornithological and botanical journals. He was a member of numerous clubs and organizations in the Boston and New York City areas and a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Linnaean Society of New York, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was an active participant in and often an executive or director of several professional organizations including the American Ornithologists' Union, the Iconological Society of America, the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and the National Audubon Society. In 1956 Griscom was a recipient of the National Audubon Society's Conservation medal.

During the last decade of his life, Griscom suffered partial paralysis from strokes. He continued his field trips, however, with the aid of friends and his wife. Journal entries were dictated to nurses and secretaries from May 1956 until his death. Griscom died in Cambridge on May 28, 1959, and is buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery.